When Gerardo Parra took the mound for the Nationals on August 3, 2019, with his team trailing 11-4 in the eighth inning in Arizona, he had no way of knowing the dubious history he was about to make in the only pitching appearance of his 12-year career. He walked the first three batters he faced, allowed an RBI single to Alex Avila, and then walked Diamondbacks reliever Zack Godley to bring home another run. That was enough for manager Davey Martinez, who opted to replace Parra on the bump with second baseman Brian Dozer to face the lefty-hitting Jarrod Dyson. To set up his desired defensive alignment without making a substitution, Martinez moved third baseman Anthony Rendon to the keystone and sent the left-handed Parra to the hot corner — a position he’d never played before. Dyson doubled home two runs, both charged to Parra. As switch-hitter Ketel Marte stepped into the right-handed batter’s box to face Dozer’s floaters, Martinez flipped Rendon and Parra, who then made his first and only career appearance at second. Marte flied out to right before Eduardo Escobar, a switch-hitter also batting right-handed, launched a three-run homer, with the first of those runs also landing on Parra’s ledger.

Of course, three months later, the Nationals would win their first and only World Series championship, with Parra conducting rousing renditions of “Baby Shark” every time he batted in Washington, but on that particular early-August night, things got ugly. With his final line of zero innings, five runs (all earned), four walks, and one hit, Parra became one of only three players to allow five or more runs without recording an out in their only career pitching appearance.

I bring this up because the first question in this week’s mailbag is about the worst major league pitcher ever. Parra is not the answer because he was not really a pitcher, but his outing was a fun bit of trivia I came across in my research, so I had no choice but to share it with you. Before we get to the actual worst-pitcher-ever candidates, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first mailbag of September. We have just over three weeks to go in the regular season, and despite what our Playoff Odds say, I am still holding out hope for at least one or two exciting postseason races.

Entering play Friday night, 11 teams (six in the NL and five in the AL) had a better than 90% chance to reach the playoffs; at 74.2%, the Mariners were the only club in possession of a playoff spot that was on less solid ground. Three other teams could still spoil Seattle’s fun: the Rangers (12.5%), the Royals (10.6%), and the Rays (10.2%). Of the Senior Circuit teams that aren’t in a playoff position, the Giants (4.3%) had the best shot of snagging a Wild Card berth. However, for any of you cheering for chaos, the Reds (2.3%) host the Mets, the current six seed, for three games this weekend; Cincinnati began the series five games behind New York.

We won’t be answering any questions about the playoff race today, but we do touch on a couple of players on contending teams. Before we get to them, though, a few quick things: First, thanks to Meg Rowley for putting together last week’s mailbag while I was on vacation, which I spent in Toronto watching baseball! My dad and I had never been to Rogers Centre before, so we decided to check another ballpark off our list. Also, FanGraphs is hiring a full-time prospect writer. For more information, check out the job posting here. Finally, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the funniest things to come out of this mailbag column so far occurred two weeks ago, when I wrote about the most replacement-level players of all time. I began that week’s mailbag by talking about questions that require both quantitative data and subjective analysis to answer, and I used the question “Who is the greatest baseball player of all time?” as an example. I made it quite clear that I wasn’t going to give my opinion on the subject; instead, I explained how people might consider the question and formulate their arguments, and in doing so, I mentioned a few of the best players ever. Nothing to it.

Except, of course, I should’ve known that you wonderful baseball sickos couldn’t resist hashing out that debate in the comments. A good number of you latched on to the part about how someone might give Barry Bonds the edge over Babe Ruth because “Bonds wouldn’t have been allowed to play during Ruth’s career.” Readers also made points about expansion and cited U.S. census numbers to compare the population sizes of major league baseball and the country. I truly did not expect any of that.

So maybe I should be prepared for anything with the question I answered to begin this week’s mailbag, which also deals with all-time great players and lineups. It’s quantitative for sure, but context is also necessary to understand why things turned out the way they did. It’s a fun one, so let’s get to it. Before we do, though, I’ll remind you all that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

I love a large lad who steals bases. That’s why I was thrilled when my friend Kevin submitted a mailbag question about Juan Soto’s base-stealing binge this season. I thought Davy Andrews would be the perfect person to answer Kevin’s query because he’d already written about the Mets’ stolen-base efficiency back in June. And I was correct; Davy was the perfect person. So perfect, in fact, that he wrote a whole article about it instead.

When I let Kevin know about Davy’s piece, he followed up with a question about Josh Naylor, who rather shockingly has stolen 22 bases as of Friday morning. Of course, Naylor is now teammates with Cal Raleigh, another slow runner with double-digit steals. The topic was too rich for me to resist, so that’s where we’ll begin today.

Before we do, though, I’d like to give a quick happy 20th birthday shoutout to FanGraphs! I’m sure David Appelman will be pleased to know that I was nine years old when he created and launched this wonderful website. Oh, and as always, I’ll remind you all that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite baseball questions are the ones that require both quantitative data and subjective analysis to answer. Who is the greatest baseball player of all time? Well, I could pull up the career WAR leaderboards, say Babe Ruth, and call it a day, but that wouldn’t a satisfying way to reach a conclusion. All of us know that the essence of Ruth — his vast accomplishments and legend — cannot be encapsulated by how many Wins Above Replacement he was worth.

What about Barry Bonds? He ranks second with 164.4 WAR, less than three wins behind Ruth (167.0), while playing against better competition; after all, Bonds wouldn’t have been allowed to play during Ruth’s career. Good point, but there’s the whole steroids thing clouding his legacy. For a while, Mike Trout looked like a worthy answer because of how much better he was than everybody else at a time when sabermetrics were becoming more mainstream. We would use the data to quantify his excellence and then, whenever the numbers alone weren’t convincing, we would say something about the superior talent level in the game today. Now, of course, the overwhelming majority of us would probably answer Shohei Ohtani because of his two-way exploits. We could cite his statistics, but we’d have to include so many qualifications, most of which would relate to the fact that he’s pitching and hitting.

I am not going to reveal my answer in this week’s mailbag because none of you asked for it. Instead, I bring this up because it relates to a different question that a reader named Derek submitted, which we’ll get to in a moment. But before we do, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Thirty-six trades in a span of 18 hours. A deadline day record. This after there were a whopping 16 swaps the day before, for an astronomical two-day total of 52 — that’s also a record, and nine more than there were over the final two days before the deadline last year.

Conceptually, the numbers are staggering. But as I sit here writing this mailbag after 7 PM on Friday, the reality of what we all experienced is starting to sink in. And I don’t know about all of you, but after a marathon of editing trade analysis pieces for the better part of the last 48 hours, I’m twitching from what can only be described as an unholy cocktail of caffeine and adrenaline, and I can feel the comedown coming. I’m both absolutely riveted and utterly drained, and the only thing keeping me upright is a keen sense of anticipation for all of the great baseball still to come.

We won’t be covering any trade news in this week’s mailbag. If you want to catch up on or relive the chaos of the last few days, you can find everything we wrote about the trade deadline linked within this roundup post. Instead, we’ll lean a little more evergreen. Before we get to your questions, though, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

This time next week, trade season will be over. We’ll know if the surging Brewers added another bat, if the Yankees, Mets and Dodgers did enough to address their injury-depleted pitching staffs, and which uniform Eugenio Suárez will be wearing the rest of the season. We’ll also hopefully have a better idea of where teams stand as we enter the dog days of August and look ahead to the September pennant chases.

For many teams, the games between now and Thursday’s deadline will carry the weight of the next two months, as their performance over that stretch will shape their strategy for the rest of the season. All of this makes for a most exciting week ahead of us. As always, we’ll be covering the chaos here at FanGraphs, analyzing trades big and small for our readers.

Before we get to this week’s mailbag, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

“Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House had a big block of cheese. The block of cheese was huge, over two tons, and it was there for any and all who might be hungry. Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people, so from time to time, he opened his doors to those who wished an audience…”

That’s the late, great John Spencer as Leo McGarry in Season 1, Episode 5 of The West Wing, giving his Big Block of Cheese Day speech to the senior staff in the Roosevelt Room. I like to think of this mailbag as FanGraphs’ own Big Block of Cheese Day. We open things up for you, our readers, to ask whatever questions you have for us, and like Leo, I comb through them and delegate some of them out to our staff to answer. (It’s fun to consider myself Meg’s chief of staff, and in this FanGraphs-as-West Wing analogy, Baumann is definitely Josh Lyman.) And as is the case in the Big Block of Cheese Day episodes, we at FanGraphs always walk away more enlightened baseball fans after answering your questions.

Big Block of Cheese Day came to mind for this mailbag because of a question I received this week that we will get to momentarily. But before then, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve ever sent in a mailbag question, you may have noticed that we sometimes wait a bit to answer it. We can’t get to all of your great questions each week, but many of them remain relevant and interesting enough that we can respond to them later on. Other questions require some reporting on our part, and it may take us longer than a week to check with various sources to gather the information necessary to address them.

I thought this was all worth mentioning, because three of the four questions featured in today’s mailbag were submitted more than an a week ago and a few deal with stats that have changed since the questions were submitted. We have updated the stats you’ll see in each question because those are the ones we are citing in our answers.

One last thing before we get to your questions: I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello FanGraphs Members and readers. I hope all of you here in the U.S. are enjoying your holiday weekend. I’ve spent much of this week on vacation, so I didn’t get to watch as many games as I usually do. Still, I followed some of the action from afar, enough to see Clayton Kershaw record his 3,000th strikeout, the Yankees fall out of first place, and the All-Star Game’s starters be named.

This week’s mailbag is a bit more evergreen than our previous ones, when we’ve answered your questions about the Rafael Devers trade and the impact of his contract, Jacob Misiorowski and perceived velocity, and the weirdness of the Twins. Instead, today we’ll discuss how we watch baseball, players of the past who could still mash in the modern game, and so much more.

Before we get to all that, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for next week’s mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »