I don’t think you can do this job for any amount of time without getting attached to particular players. Not even in the sense of having love or affection — certain ballplayers are just interesting to certain writers. For me, that manifests in just checking in with those players once or twice a season to see how they’re doing. Which reminds me, I’m overdue for my next updates on Willy Adames and Trevor Rogers.

I sometimes preface blogs about such players with the phrase, “Longtime readers might remember…”

Well, longtime readers might remember Hurston Waldrep’s splitter. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets swept the Phillies this week, which made headlines for two reasons: First, the Mets have now won 10 straight against the Phillies at Citi Field, dating back to last September, and including Games 3 and 4 of last year’s NLDS. If the Phillies don’t win a game there in the playoffs, they don’t face the Mets in New York again until the last weekend of June 2026. A potential 21-month losing streak at a divisional rival is tough to swallow, though it’s good to see that everyone’s being super normal about it.

Second, it kept the NL East race alive. The Phillies entered this division matchup seven games up with 32 to play; had they won the series, they would’ve basically had the division title in the bag. As it stands now, they’re up five, with the Mets coming to Philadelphia for a four-game set in mid-September. The Phillies are still 3-to-1 favorites, according to our playoff odds, but it’s a real pennant race now.

But this sweep is most important for a reason that went a little under the radar. While the Mets were beating seven shades of you-know-what out of the Phillies, the Dodgers were doing the same to the Reds in Los Angeles. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve had to avert your eyes from the funeral pyre of the 2025 Baltimore Orioles, I feel ya. It has, at times, not been a pretty sight. But hope springs anew, as of Tuesday, with the return of Kyle Bradish to the Orioles’ rotation.

Bradish was a late-blooming prospect who only really put it together in his age-26 season, and was only at the top for a little over a season before he tore his UCL last June. Since Bradish went down, the Orioles’ pitching staff has weathered some even noisier crises: The departure of Corbin Burnes, a season-ending back injury to Zach Eflin, a season-ending (possibly multiple seasons-ending) shoulder injury to Félix Bautista, and ongoing elbow issues that have kept Grayson Rodriguez out of action all year. (I’m not comfortable calling Rodriguez’s injury season-ending, because the question of whether you can end something that never started is an ontological conundrum I’m not equipped to solve.) Read the rest of this entry »

You might remember that, back in May, I issued a challenge to baseball fans across the globe: Give up your favorite team for a week and follow another. Thus was the inaugural FanGraphs Fan Exchange Program born.

I published the original survey on May 20, assigned everyone a new team to watch between June 16 and June 23, and promised to publish my findings sometime in mid-July. July, as you might have noticed, has come and gone, and so has most of August, but the results are finally in.

Why the delay? Well, I want to say that draft season bled into trade deadline season and I just couldn’t find the time, but that’s not the whole story. I didn’t consider that I would have to do more to publicize the exit survey than post a link on BlueSky, and quite a bit of time passed before I went back to the original email list and sent a link directly. If you’re still waiting for the exit survey as you’re reading this, well, I’m quite embarrassed to say that doesn’t surprise me. At the end of the day, I’m not sure it went out to everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Bryan Woo is due to start this evening against the Athletics in Seattle. I expect he’ll go six innings. Why? Because he’s gone at least six innings in all 24 of his starts this season. Woo’s streak, as you’ve probably guessed, is the longest in baseball by some distance. Only two other active pitchers — Cristopher Sánchez and Spencer Schwellenbach — have gone six or more in their 10 most recent starts. (Schwellenbach will keep that streak going through the end of the year, having fractured his elbow in June.)

The fact that Woo has completed six innings every time he’s taken the mound this year is self-evident proof that he’s been consistent. But at the same time, this yearlong run of metronomity has not been interrupted by bursts of transcendence. He’s only recorded one out in the eighth inning all season. He hasn’t posted back-to-back scoreless starts since June of last year, and he’s still looking for the first double-digit strikeout game of his entire major league career.

On April 12, Woo allowed one run across seven innings in a 9-2 win over the Rangers, lowering his ERA to 2.84. Ever since then, his ERA has always been within half a run in either direction of 3.00. It hasn’t been more than a quarter of a run from 3.00 since the second week of June. The man is a machine. Read the rest of this entry »

I thought the Astros made a nifty pickup at the deadline by sneaking Jesús Sánchez through the door while everyone was paying attention to the Carlos Correa trade. Sánchez is by no means a transformative player, but he fixes a platoon imbalance in Houston’s outfield and he can theoretically play center field. At least he can stand out there for nine innings without maiming himself.

But apparently the Marlins are the real winners in that deal. Sánchez has had a slow start in Houston, but I have faith that he’ll come around eventually. Either way, that’s not especially relevant. By moving this perfectly fine outfielder out of the way, Miami has made room for 24-year-old Jakob Marsee. Never heard of him? I don’t blame you. But since the deadline, he’s been the best position player in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Tucker needs to learn how to manage expectations better. He’s having a good season on paper: .261/.374/.447 with 18 home runs. He has a 131 wRC+, more walks than strikeouts, and 25 stolen bases in 27 attempts. His WAR, 3.9, is a tenth behind Kyle Schwarber, who’s getting MVP chatter, and two tenths ahead of Juan Soto.

But right now, the Cubs star is really going through it, and nobody is happy.

Tucker is 2-for-25 in his past seven games and just 8-for-54 in August. He hasn’t hit a home run in 31 days, and most incredibly, his last extra-base hit of any kind came in July. Tucker is taking it about as well as you’d expect; on Sunday, he didn’t run out a groundball to first base, and on Monday he slammed his helmet into the ground in frustration after flying out to end the eighth inning of a 7-0 loss to Milwaukee. Both incidents drew boos from the Wrigley Field fans. Read the rest of this entry »

Let me be the first to congratulate Logan Webb on his third-place NL Cy Young finish. It’s well deserved.

Right now, the award is Paul Skenes’ to lose, and it’s easy to see why. He’s big, he throws hard, he’s famous, and while he’s come back to Earth a little in the past three weeks, he genuinely hasn’t had a truly bad start since high school, if ever. Sometimes, playing for a last-place, small-market team is bad for one’s award chances, but if anything, the Pirates’ dog crap season has only perversely burnished Skenes’ reputation. He’d be a big fish in any pond, but my God, does he stand out here.

Believe it or not, there are two NL starters who came out of the weekend within half a win of Skenes on the WAR leaderboard: Webb and Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez. The changeup is back, baby! Read the rest of this entry »

Cade Horton gave up a run on Wednesday night. Kind of. He was charged with a run because he exited the game with two men on base, but it was Andrew Kittredge who allowed the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sea-skimming missile that brought the run home. Not to criticize Kittredge; the odd 111.8-mph double is an occupational hazard of pitching to Vladito.

That run was the first one Horton had surrendered in five starts since the All-Star Break; taking things back to his final outing before the Midsummer Classic, Horton’s scoreless streak had run to 29 innings. In those five starts, Horton has allowed 11 hits total, only one of them for extra bases.

As for his most recent start, I don’t think Horton or the Cubs will be too broken up about the inherited runner. Not only did Chicago win the game, but also Horton set a new career high with eight strikeouts and made the Blue Jays wait until the sixth inning for their first hit. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past 30 days, the major league leader in position player WAR and wRC+ is also tied for the league lead in home runs and runs scored. You might not have noticed because the team he plays for, the Athletics, is taking some time off to go find itself before settling down. The player in question is not Nick Kurtz! Haha, I pulled the ol’ switcheroo there, didn’t I?

No, it’s Shea Langeliers.

That’s right, the most dangerous hitter in baseball over the past month is a catcher. Not only that, a catcher who entered this season with a career wRC+ of just 98, who was hitting an uninspiring .226/.285/.424 at the All-Star break. Since then, Langeliers is hitting .398/.419/.857, with as many home runs (12) in 105 second-half plate appearances as he hit in 267 PA in the first half. Read the rest of this entry »