Not counting RotoGraphs posts, Jake Mangum has been a featured player in three articles on this site since the start of last season. In two of those — one each by myself and David Laurila — the phrase “Old School” appears in the headline.
I wouldn’t put too much stock in headlines, especially my own, but in this case it tells you everything you need to know.
Mangum, a legend at Mississippi State, has a style of play that firmly rebukes generations of baseball wisdom. That’s why I wrote about him last April; if you hate hitters who strike out too much and look to hit doubles and home runs instead of dinking drop shots behind the infield, Mangum is your man. Read the rest of this entry »
As we approach August, now is a good time to take a fresh look at the farm systems of some of the clubs we expect to be buyers at the trade deadline. These teams are both contending for a playoff berth and in position to make a buyer’s style trade for a star big leaguer, the kind that will likely require parting with a top farmhand or two. We kicked things off with the Atlanta Braves, and we’ll continue today with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In tandem with an evaluation of the team’s needs and deadline posture, I’ve updated Los Angeles’ prospect list to account for graduations, incorporate the team’s new draftees, and reflect developments on the farm. The Dodgers have a great farm system, heavy on outfield prospects and pitchers who throw hard but who might just be relievers.
The Situation
The Dodgers have a comfortable 12.5-game lead in the NL West. They’ve successfully weathered injuries to several key cogs on offense (Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernández, and Will Smith) through a combination of their older stars remaining productive, and Andy Pages and Dalton Rushing improving. On the pitching side, their younger hurlers, especially Justin Wrobleski and several of the sophomore relievers, have stepped up after many of their other arms went down (including Edwin Díaz, Tyler Glasnow, and Blake Snell), and despite a full injury ward, Los Angeles has a top six pitching staff in most statistical categories. More reinforcements are on the way from within, as a few of the injured Dodgers (Díaz, Snell, and Enrique Hernández) are on rehab assignments as the trade deadline approaches, creating a bubble that will force some action on the margins of the big league roster. They may have to play musical chairs a bit as they decide how aggressively to pursue star-caliber improvements to their few weak spots. Read the rest of this entry »
For one day, the Marlins were probably going to make the playoffs. On July 8, after they’d shut out the Mariners, 2-0, our Playoff Odds gave the Fish a 51.5% chance of playing in October. It was the first time they’d crested 50% since 2023.
They had just swept the A’s in West Sacramento and were about to finish sweeping the Mariners at home. Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank went the roller coaster. With the final win against Seattle, the Marlins had won 16 out of 20, tied for the best 20-game span in franchise history. The six-game winning streak that closed that span put them 10 games above .500, at 52-42. Crank, crank, crank. They were tied with the Phillies for the second and third Wild Card spots. They were three full games ahead of the Cardinals in fourth place. Not only were the Marlins going to hold onto Sandy Alcantara at the deadline, wrote Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, but they were going to be buyers for the first time in Peter Bendix’s three years at the helm, “barring” — crank — “an utter” — crank — “collapse.” Then the Playoff Odds took a stomach-churning plunge. It was the opposite of the famous Sarah Langs Whee! It was an Eeew, and it was gross indeed.
The Marlins lost their next 12 games. Last night, after coming within an eyelash of unlucky 13, they finally broke the streak with a win. They blew a three-run lead to the Phillies in the sixth inning and went into the bottom of the ninth down two. But they came back to walk it off on a bases loaded single from Griffin Conine. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve written before about one of my favorite baseball traditions: The Rays make a run to the playoffs, and because they’re not the Yankees or Red Sox, and they turn over their entire 40-man roster every 24 months, they show up on TV with a bunch of guys the average sports fan has never heard of.
Come October, America is introduced to a weird reliever when he throws three perfect innings in the ALDS. “Who the frick is this guy?” America asks. “And how does anyone hit him?” Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, I helmed FanGraphs’ annual Trade Value Series, a list of the 50 most valuable players in baseball. As is customary, I built the list using my own insights as well as feedback from both the FanGraphs staff and a number of team personnel. But for the second straight year, mine wasn’t the only ranking in town. In addition to my rankings, our Crowdsourced Trade Value tool let any reader create their own list via a series of “which of these two players do you prefer” decisions.
Two weeks and 500,000 responses later, we turned those “this one or that one?” preferences into an aggregate list. You can see the crowd’s results here, as well as your own. If you’re interested in diving more deeply into the methodology we used to turn everyone’s individual votes into an aggregate ranking, last year’s version of this article has the specifics, but generally speaking, we take everyone’s individual player-versus-player results, combine them into one giant list, and sample them in a random order (a few times) to come up with a composite list of the preferences of all FanGraphs readers.
First, I wanted to highlight the crowd’s top 10, which looks a whole lot like my top 10:
Caleb Durbin had a brutal first few months of the 2026 season. One week into June, the Boston Red Sox third baseman had come to the plate 208 times to the tune of a .190/.254/.288 slash line and a 47 wRC+. Despite his pull-oriented right-handed stroke seemingly being a good fit for the Green Monster, he had also gone deep just once — in a road game, no less. Understandably, the Fenway faithful weren’t exactly enamored with the player who had come East in February as a part of the multi-player deal that sent high-performing southpaw Kyle Harrison to Milwaukee.
Then things turned around. Since June 9, Durbin has slashed a robust .298/.363/.532 with a 145 wRC+ over 158 plate appearances. Moreover, he has homered nine times, with four of the blasts clearing Fenway’s fabled left-field wall. The most recent of the bunch was an eighth-inning game-decider that lifted the Red Sox to the 14th of their franchise-record-tying 15 consecutive wins.
What exactly did Durbin do to rebound from his disappointing early-season results? I asked him that question in the days leading up to the All-Star break, but before doing so, a related inquiry was in order: How does the present-day Durbin compare to the then-23-year-old New York Yankees prospect I spoke to in May 2023? Read the rest of this entry »
Justine Willard, Wendell Cruz, Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images
If you’re a baseball fan, the end of July means one thing: Trades. That’s right, we’re less than a week away from this year’s deadline, which is set for Monday at 6 p.m. ET, and there’s plenty of action still to unfold. Even a real snoozer of a deadline tends to have at least a few big deals, and so far, the only real needle mover swap made was the fascinating challenge trade that sent Connelly Early from the Red Sox to the Nationals for Curtis Mead.
While we don’t know precisely what will actually happen, since there are no such things as oracles, we have an idea that something will occur, making the trade deadline the ideal time for wish-casting and imagineering. As I do every year, I whip up some trade scenarios that are plausible and productive. We usually get fun additional trade discussion in the comments, so make sure to check those out and maybe even add your own. I’d also suggest letting me know when I give up too much or too little in a trade. Read the rest of this entry »
Clifford Oto/The Stockton Record/USA Today Network via Imagn Images
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 »
We’re one week away from the August 3 trade deadline, and yet there’s still very little clarity for a handful of teams. The American League is a jumbled mess, and National League teams like the Nationals and Padres are straddling the buy/sell line, too. But one thing is for sure: The Angels will be sellers. What’s not yet settled is the extent to which they’ll sell.
With interim general manager John Mozeliak running the show after the ouster of Perry Minasian, the Angels suddenly have their most decorated baseball ops head since Bill Stoneman, the architect of the 2002 World Series champions, who briefly returned to handle the 2015 trade deadline. That came after a power struggle with manager Mike Scioscia led to Jerry Dipoto’s departure, and Stoneman went through with a handful of depth moves, bringing in post-prime David DeJesus, David Murphy, and Shane Victorino to bolster a club that was 55-47 at the July 31 deadline. Those Angels were just two games out of first place and had a three-in-four chance at making the playoffs. They finished 30-30, fading to third place and out of the playoff picture with an overall record of 85-77. They haven’t had a winning season since then, and they haven’t made the playoffs since the year before, when they won 98 games but were swept by the Royals in the ALDS. It’s been a miserable stretch for the Halos, one that will continue through the remainder of the season. As of Monday morning, our Playoff Odds projected the Angels to finish with their second-worst record in the last 30 years.
Still, these woes don’t have to drag on in perpetuity. The Angels have options aplenty as the trade deadline nears to try and change the direction of their wayward organization. Here are three paths they could take: Read the rest of this entry »
Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.
May 23
Today marks my first time leaving the house for more than an hour or two since Derek Jr. was born. I’ve got band practice, and then the band is going out to a bar to watch the game. I don’t tell anyone, but I’m so out of the loop these days that I have no idea what game everyone is talking about. The timing couldn’t be worse, and that turns out to be the theme of the evening.
I feed Derek Jr. and put her down for a nap right before I head out, but she wakes up with horrible stomach trouble as soon as I leave. Band practice is two hours long, and my wife spends the entire time soothing Derek Jr. Band practice is a delight, as always. It’s extraordinarily loose. I haven’t touched a guitar in months, but nobody else has been practicing either, and it’s not like we need to be ready for a show or anything, so nobody minds much when a song goes off the rails. Read the rest of this entry »
