The current standings between the two leagues are quite lopsided entering the second full week of May. Just three teams in the American League have winning records, while all five clubs in the NL Central are above .500. Then again, that division, which was not supposed to be all that strong entering the season, is doing a lot to prop up the National League as a whole; seven of the remaining 10 teams in the Senior Circuit have losing records.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

In his first three seasons, Patrick Bailey carved a niche as one of the game’s top defensive catchers, dominating the Statcast defensive leaderboards and winning two Gold Gloves. The development of his offense has lagged, however, and with the Giants struggling to score runs and sporting one of the majors’ worst records, they’ve decide they can live without Bailey’s glovework. On Saturday, they traded the 27-year-old backstop to the Guardians for 23-year-old lefty pitching prospect Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and a Competitive Balance pick in the upcoming draft.

This is the second season in a row that president of baseball operations Buster Posey has shaken up San Francisco’s roster with an early-season trade; last year, it was the mid-June acquisition of slugger Rafael Devers in a blockbuster with Boston. You don’t have to squint too hard to accept that both trades were aimed at upgrading moribund offenses, but when the Giants dealt for Devers, they were 11 games above .500 (41-30), one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West. They felt they’d landed the offensive cornerstone that had eluded them after unsuccessful pursuits of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, a player who could help them return to the postseason for the first time since 2021. This time around, they entered the day of the trade 15-23, last in the division, and the move appears far more tilted toward the future, as Wilkinson has just gotten his feet wet in Double-A and the draft pick won’t make an immediate impact.

If this trade had occurred just prior to the deadline (August 3 this year), it might have been characterized as a white flag, part of a larger selloff. To these eyes, it’s a shakeup that at worst smacks of panic and at best places a lot of faith that Posey — a likely Hall of Fame catcher who has yet to show similar prowess as an executive — has found a diamond or two in the rough with his two recent catching acquisitions: Jesus Rodriguez, who came from the Yankees in last year’s Camilo Doval trade, and Daniel Susac, who was flipped by the Twins in December after being plucked from the A’s as a Rule 5 pick. Both are 24 years old and have fewer than 10 games of major league experience, with Susac, who turns 25 on May 14, currently on a rehab assignment after being sidelined by neuritis in his right elbow. Eric Haase, a 33-year-old backstop who hit his way out of a starting job in Detroit in 2023, started in Saturday’s 13-3 drubbing by the Pirates — San Francisco’s ninth loss in 11 games — while Rodriguez started Sunday’s 7-6 win, which lifted the team’s record to 16-24, still third worst in the NL. Read the rest of this entry »

Kai-Wei Teng had a limited repertoire when he signed with the Minnesota Twins out of Taiwan in 2017. The right-hander from Taichung possessed just a fastball and a curveball. A lot has changed since that time. Now 27 years old and pitching for the Houston Astros, Teng attacks hitters with a five-pitch mix that includes a sweeper that is not only hard to hit, it is no fun to be on the receiving end of in catch-play.

“It’s insanely good,” Spencer Arrighetti told me last weekend at Fenway Park. “I throw a sweeper. Lance [McCullers] throws a sweeper. We have a couple of other guys who toy around with it. But Teng’s is incredible. Truly. I played catch with him, and it looks like a fastball for 48 feet, then takes a 90-degree left turn. Not all sweepers are created equal. Some of them are a little loopier and bigger, but his is 85 mph. I mean, it’s gross. It really is a great pitch.”

The numbers back that up. Teng has relied on his most-used offering 36.3% of the time this season to the tune of a .118 BAA, a .118 SLG, and a 27.9% whiff rate. His other numbers are impressive, as well. Over 14 appearances, Teng has a 2.35 ERA, a 3.83 FIP, and a 24.7% strikeout rate over 23 innings.

I asked Teng for the story behind his best weapon. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine a video game designed around failure. One where winning isn’t defined as completing a set of objectives, but rather as finding the most creative, painful, and improbable ways to avoid completing the task at hand. I haven’t heard of such a game, but I’m convinced that it must exist, because the Reds are speedrunning it before our very eyes.

Entering May, Cincinnati was 20-11 and in sole possession of first place in the NL Central. To that point, they hadn’t been more than a game out of the division since April 3. One week later, the Reds are now 20-18, six games back, and in sole possession of last place in the division. Now, measuring strictly on length of losing streak, Cincinnati’s skid isn’t nearly as notable as the 12-gamer put up by the Mets or the 10-gamer that contributed to the dismissal of Phillies manager Rob Thomson. But by several other measures, the last week of Reds baseball has been an even more profound and excruciating experience of failure.

The Reds’ true talent as a team is still a bit of an enigma at this point in the season. They haven’t hit well — their team wOBA sits at .311, which ranks all the way down at 23rd in the majors, but a BABIP of .262 and an xwOBA of .332 suggest some misfortune at the plate. On the other side of the ball, their 4.61 team ERA is in the bottom third of the league, their 5.16 xERA ranks last in the majors, and their 4.80 FIP doesn’t rate much better. With those numbers in mind, it should come as no surprise that Cincinnati’s win total as estimated by BaseRuns sits around 16, a full four wins fewer than their actual mark. Read the rest of this entry »

With Thursday’s 6-2 win over the Mets, the Rockies snapped a six-game losing streak and lifted their record to 15-23, momentarily escaping the distinction of owning at least a share of the National League’s worst record, which is currently shared by those Mets and the Giants (14-23). If they are again one of the majors’ worst teams, the Rox are at least not on pace to approach last year’s 119 losses, nor are they entirely devoid of bright spots, including catcher Hunter Goodman, starter Tomoyuki Sugano, and relievers Chase Dollander and Antonio Senzatela. But by far their brightest spot lately has been the play of Mickey Moniak. Now in his second season with the team, Moniak leads the league in slugging percentage (.700), ranks second in wRC+ (176), and is third in home runs (11) despite barely having enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title.

Alas, the 18-game hitting streak Moniak rode into Thursday came to an end in that victory, as he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk. He’d barely kept the streak alive on Wednesday night, going hitless in his first four plate appearances. He got under a pair of hard-hit balls against Mets starter Freddy Peralta, producing a popup to shortstop and a fly out to center field, both routine, and struck out twice, once against a high Peralta fastball and once against a low-and-away Brooks Raley sweeper. By the time he came to the plate for the fifth time, the Rockies were down 10-4 with one out in the ninth. Moniak ripped a hot smash 106.7 mph just to the left of pitcher Sean Manaea and past the outstretched glove of second baseman Marcus Semien as he dove to his right.

During Thursday’s game, Moniak’s contact wasn’t nearly as solid, though he almost kept the streak alive with a soft liner. The ball’s 64.3-mph exit velocity and 21-degree launch angle made it the kind of flare that actually lands for a hit more often than not, with just enough oomph to get over the infield dirt; the expected batting average on such balls is .550, but Semien did a fine job chasing that one down. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have accumulated the fifth-most WAR of any team from their catchers this year. Their backstops have a collective 133 wRC+ at the position, third highest in baseball. This has been one of the team’s biggest strengths to start this season, so it was a bit of a surprise to see Miami make a pretty significant change at the position earlier this week. On Monday, the Marlins optioned Agustín Ramírez to Triple-A, calling up top catching prospect Joe Mack to take his place on the big league roster. The reason why they felt comfortable making this swap has been the standout play of Liam Hicks, the much less-heralded catcher also in his second big league season.

As Miami’s top overall prospect a year ago, Ramírez spent nearly the entire season in the majors. He put up a .231/.287/.413 slash line (91 wRC+) in 136 games as a rookie. Despite the nearly league-average batting line, he accumulated exactly 0.0 WAR because of some pretty atrocious defensive numbers. Per Statcast, he had the second-lowest Fielding Run Value of any catcher with at least 500 innings at the position. He was actually a slightly above-average pitch framer, but his throwing and blocking grades were the worst in baseball.

Through a month of play this year, Ramírez’s bat hasn’t really taken a step forward; his 86 wRC+ is a hair below what he accomplished last season, though the shape of his production looks a little different. His walk rate is nearly four points higher than it was in 2025, but his power output has cratered thanks to a six-point drop in barrel rate. The defense hasn’t improved either, and so the Marlins sent him back to Triple-A to work on his skills behind the plate. Here’s how manager Clayton McCullough put it on Monday:

“It got to the point where it is performance and felt like, especially on the defensive side of things, that while he put in a lot of good work this offseason and had seen some glimpse of things getting better, that part of his game needs to continue to improve to be able to catch up here for us.”

Read the rest of this entry »

On April 29, 2021, Matt Olson hit himself in the face with a baseball in the batting cage at Tropicana Field. A freak bounce off the L-screen left him with the kind of shiner an athlete can usually only acquire by going 12 rounds with Marvin Hagler, but fortunately no lasting damage. By May 2, Olson was well enough to return to the lineup, and he hasn’t missed a game since.

Olson’s consecutive games streak now stands at 820; not only is this the longest active run in baseball, he recently passed Nellie Fox for the 11th-longest streak in MLB history. Assuming he avoids any further batting practice mishaps, Olson will end the season with the eighth-longest streak ever. Only seven players in MLB history — and 10 in all of North American top-level sports — have ever played in 1,000 straight games. Olson is due to become the 11th before the All-Star break next year. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. Actually, this is a slightly different column: Five Nico Hoerner Throws From Shallow Right Field I’ve Liked This Year Plus Assorted Veteran Cubs Defenders. That’s a little bit less catchy, though, and it’s at least vaguely Five Things formatted, so I’m counting it. Does “plays a single second baseman has made in one area of the field in one month of play” sound like too narrow a topic for not just one article, but five vignettes? It sure does – until you watch Hoerner play. When I voted for him in the Fielding Bible Awards last year, I wrote this: “I actually spent a while reviewing his defense on video. That wasn’t because I seriously considered anyone else for the top spot; it’s just that satisfying to watch him play.” Today, you can be a video reviewer alongside me. Try not to spit out your drink. And of course, what introduction could be complete without credit to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, the inspiration for this column?

1. Calmness Under Pressure
When you’re on the baseball diamond, things won’t always go right. At the big league level, the margins are razor thin. The other guy lives in a big house, too. Half a second late, and there’s no chance for an out. Throw to the wrong base? That’s often going to cost you. But the Chicago infield is packed to the gills with defenders who can tilt the playing field with guile, clawing that razor-thin margin back. A freakishly high chopper, off the bat of Joey Wiemer, gave baserunner Andrés Chaparro a good opportunity to take an extra base on an infield single. Hoerner probably shouldn’t have even attempted to throw him out, but he went for it:

Read the rest of this entry »

Luke Raley took a big hack. Then he took another.

Raley has struck out 36.6% of the time to begin 2026, third most among batters with at least 100 plate appearances. He’s walked just 5.9% of the time, well below the median. His 0.16 K/BB ratio is one of the 10 worst in baseball this year. That’s typically not a recipe for success.

But this is:

Raley has six homers so far in 2026, carrying him to a 132 wRC+. He’s hitting the ball hard (51.8%), to the pull side (50.0%), and in the air (60.7%). His .595 xwOBA on contact is third in the majors. The only batters who have made better contact are Aaron Judge and James Wood, putting Raley ahead of Ben Rice, Munetaka Murakami, Mike Trout, and Yordan Alvarez. It’s impressive company to keep. Read the rest of this entry »

Not all splitters are the same. Hybrids are common — think “splinkers” and split-changes — hence the variations seen in both velocity and movement. The human element is also at play. Regardless of the grip, one pitcher’s split isn’t necessarily going to behave exactly like another pitcher’s. From finger dexterity to arm action, and whatever else might factor in, differences are inevitable.

And then there is spin. Per Statcast, pitches classified as splitters currently range from 508 rpm (Cade Smith) to 2,105 rpm (Joe Boyle). Fifteen of the 71 pitchers who have thrown a splitter this year (minimum 10 innings pitched) are averaging fewer than 1,000 rpm, with Smith being one of seven under 800 rpm, the others being Logan Gilbert (687), Hunter Barco (689), Mark Leiter Jr. (689), Fernando Cruz (774), and Roki Sasaki (776).

Watching a recent game where a splitter acted almost like a knuckleball got me thinking about low spin, and what better way to learn about the subject than talking to someone in the know? Previously with Driveline and Prime Sports Performance, Spencer Medick is now the pitching coach for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RoughRiders, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees.

I began by asking Medick if anyone on his current club throws a splitter. Read the rest of this entry »