Archive for Daily Graphings

With the August 3 trade deadline fast approaching, we’re bound to see minor leaguers aplenty floated in trade rumors. If you’re curious about the players who might find themselves in new orgs in a few weeks, The Board is a great resource, as are the new minor league leaderboards, the subject of today’s Feature Focus.

The Basics

• Our minor league statistics go back to 2006, with batted-ball data going back to 2007.
• You can combine multiple seasons, or separate the leaderboards into discrete player-seasons by checking the box next to Split Seasons.
• The Level, League, Minor League Team, and MLB Org drop-downs allow for multiple filters across drop-downs (e.g., selecting Triple-A and then the Pacific Coast League), but not for multiple filters within each drop-down. The leaderboards don’t currently allow for selecting multiple MLB organizations, for example.
• The Stat Filters can be stacked, however. Here’s the leaderboard filtered for a 150 wRC+ or higher and 15 or more steals, sorted by most steals:

You’ll notice that in the above screenshot, wRC+ isn’t actually shown in the resulting leaderboard because it’s not in the Standard tab. Unlike the player pages or our major league leaderboards, the minor league leaderboards don’t have a Dashboard tab, so the default statistics are different. This can be solved using the Custom Report button, which I used to add wRC+. I also restricted my view to qualified hitters only:

Members can add columns to their hearts’ content, while non-Members are limited to 10 total columns in their custom reports.

What’s New

The current minor league leaderboards didn’t get a drastic overhaul from the old version (which will remain live through the World Series), but there were two fantastic additions.

The first is custom date ranges, available only to Members. When a custom date range is selected, the player’s age will show a span of years, as illustrated in this leaderboard of the minor league leaders in strikeouts since July 1, 2023:

The filters section includes a MaxAge option, which works the same as the Age filter would for a single season, but filters on the oldest player-season shown in the range.

Non-Members are limited to the Quick Range options of the last seven, 14, or 30 days, along with the Season Start and Season End selectors.

We’ve also incorporated our new Heat Maps feature, which I went over in detail a couple of weeks ago.

As is the case with all new and updated features at FanGraphs, we don’t view the minor league leaderboards as a fully complete project just because we’ve made a couple of additions. At the top of the new leaderboards, you’ll see a link to submit any feedback you have.

Arsenals that include three variations of a fastball — four-seamer, two-seamer, cutter — are increasingly common in today’s game, and Drew Rasmussen is among the trend’s success stories. Relying heavily on a triad of heaters, the 30-year-old Tampa Bay Rays right-hander boasts a 2.96 ERA and a 3.65 FIP over 249 1/3 innings across the 2025-2026 campaigns. Moreover, he just represented the Rays on the American League All-Star team for a second year running.

How Rasmussen became three-heater reliant (just over 80% combined usage) isn’t itself atypical. The way he tells the story of how it happened is atypical… if not a bit curious. In explaining the advent of his most recent — and most impactful — fastball addition, he pinpointed a hitter against whom he’d struggled far less than his telling would suggest.

Rasmussen sat down to talk fastballs when the Rays visited Fenway Park over the weekend. As his responses were expansive — followup questions were few and far between — what he shared is being presented in monologue form.

———

Drew Rasmussen: “When I got traded here [in May 2021], I was four-seam and gyro slider — that’s basically what I was throwing in Milwaukee — and then I had a curveball that was very low usage, as well as a bad, bad changeup. Over here, when they transitioned me from the bullpen into the rotation, we learned that I can manipulate the gyro slider a little bit to create a little more lift and give it more of a true cutter profile. I can also manipulate it to get some depth and keep a true slider profile, which gives me the opportunity to pick and choose shapes depending on what I’m looking for. Situationally, what do I want to throw?

“They saw the movement profile of my changeup, so we scrapped that pretty quick. From there we started developing a sweeper — I have the ability to supinate through everything — and that worked pretty well for me in 2021. Then, in 2022, I kept running into Bo Bichette. I had nothing to get him out with. Nothing. I mean, he’s good at hitting balls the other way, and staying on everything. But if you missed in with a breaking ball, he could do pull-side damage. I would be out there frustrated, because the only thing I had to go in on him with was a four-seamer. And at the time, I was cutting it anyway.

“We started playing around with things. Because I had nothing that would work [inside] to him, we would take a shot with a four-seam up and away and he would hit a double into the gap. We would take a shot with a gyro slider down and away, and he would hit it through the four hole. We’d go sweeper and he’d shoot something down the line. I’d try to bounce a curveball and he would hit a line drive up the middle. Everything I threw worked right into his comfort zone, basically. Read the rest of this entry »

As is tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using the lead-up to the trade deadline to take stock of the top 50 players in baseball by trade value. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at the players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above.

For those of you who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2027-2031, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money (exclusive of any signing bonus), if any, the year through which their team has contractual control of them, last year’s rank (if applicable), and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2031 (assuming the player is under contract or team control for those seasons, or has a player or vesting option). Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2025 post. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for his technical wizardry. At the bottom of the page, there is a grid showing all of the players who have been ranked up to this point. Read the rest of this entry »

You know the joke. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” asks the interviewer. Mitch Hedberg has the perfect answer. “Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking me this question.” Mike Elias and the Orioles sure seem to have their own five-year plan, and they fleshed it out on Sunday, signing right-hander Kyle Bradish to a five-year, $90 million extension. The deal buys out the starter’s final two years of arbitration, along with three free agent years, keeping him in orange and black until his age-35 season in 2031. Bradish is making $3.55 million in arbitration this season, and he’ll make $10 million when the new deal kicks in next year. He’ll get a $3 million raise in 2028, then get $1 million added to his annual raise in each subsequent season. So he’ll make $10 million in 2027, then 13, then 17, then 22, then 28 in 2031. It’s a classic example of linear growth rather than exponential, and it should help Bradish stay a step ahead of inflation. According to The Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka, it’s also the largest deal for a pitcher in franchise history.

Bradish has a 3.50 ERA and a 3.62 FIP for his career, but there’s still room for some uncertainty in his profile. He debuted in 2022 and put up ugly numbers across 23 starts, running a 4.90 ERA and a 4.46 FIP. He broke out in 2023, going 12-7 with a 2.83 ERA and a 3.27 FIP. The underlying numbers weren’t quite so spectacular, as a big component of his improvement was a drop in home run rate that looked unsustainably large. Although Bradish had made more sustainable improvements to his walk, strikeout, and groundball rates, it still would have been fair to expect some regression. Instead, he came out of the gate even better in 2024. His walk rate did indeed regress, but he suppressed homers even further and ratcheted his strikeout rate all the way up to 33%. It was a huge jump, but it lasted just eight starts before the god of ulnar collateral ligaments demanded its tribute.

Bradish returned from Tommy John surgery at the end of August 2025, and he picked up right where he’d left off before the injury. In fact, over his six starts, he struck out more than 37% of the batters he faced. If you combine the two seasons, Bradish threw 71 1/3 innings across 14 starts, posting a 2.65 ERA and a 2.48 FIP. He put up 2.5 WAR in what was essentially half a season. It was legitimate dominance. Read the rest of this entry »

As is tradition at FanGraphs, we’re using the lead-up to the trade deadline to take stock of the top 50 players in baseball by trade value. For a more detailed introduction to this year’s exercise, as well as a look at the players who fell just short of the top 50, be sure to read the Introduction and Honorable Mentions piece, which can be found in the widget above.

For those of you who have been reading the Trade Value Series the last few seasons, the format should look familiar. For every player, you’ll see a table with the player’s projected five-year WAR from 2027-2031, courtesy of Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections. The table will also include the player’s guaranteed money (exclusive of any signing bonus), if any, the year through which their team has contractual control of them, last year’s rank (if applicable), and then projections, contract status, and age for each individual season through 2031 (assuming the player is under contract or team control for those seasons, or has a player or vesting option). Last year’s rank includes a link to the relevant 2025 post. Thanks are due to Sean Dolinar for his technical wizardry. At the bottom of the page, there is a grid showing all of the players who have been ranked up to this point. Read the rest of this entry »

The concept of trade likely predates written history. If one person has a thing, and another person has a different thing, you better believe that they’re both thinking about whether they’d be better off by swapping those things. That means that the concept of value is almost as old; if things can be swapped, then it’s important to rank them so that you don’t make a bad deal and end up with something worse than what you started with. In other words, trade value lists are one of the things we humans have done the longest. Or at least, that’s what I like to tell myself to feel better when it’s 11:47 PM and I’m wondering whether I’d rather have four years of a shortstop or three years of a mid-rotation starter.

Welcome to the 2026 FanGraphs Trade Value Series. Starting today and continuing through the end of the week, we’re releasing our list of the 50 most valuable players in baseball, taking player performance, age, and contract details into account. Dave Cameron, Kiley McDaniel, Craig Edwards, and Kevin Goldstein have all headlined this list before; this is my fifth year doing it on my own.

Of course, I really ought to put “on my own” in quotation marks. I start building this list by gathering every input I can think of. Age, contract status, current statistics, projected future performance, Statcast data, pitch- and arsenal-level modeling, scouting reports – if it can be written down, I try to consider it in my first pass. I use all of those inputs to come up with an initial set of rankings, then refine those rankings by diving deeper into individual player comparisons. After I have things in relatively good order, I consult with the FanGraphs staff to clarify my thinking further and get new opinions on tough decisions. Everyone is a big help, but special thanks are due to Dan Szymborski for supplying the ZiPS projections, Sean Dolinar for his technical assistance, and Meg Rowley for patiently shepherding the project from a spreadsheet to the final product. Next, I reach out to sources on the team side. Here, I try to gather perspectives from organizations with different methodological leanings, budgets, goals, and places in the competitive cycle; basically, as many differing viewpoints as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Troy Melton has excelled since returning to the mound in late May. Over nine starts comprising 55 innings, the 25-year-old Detroit Tigers right-hander has won five of six decisions while logging a 1.80 ERA and a 3.86 FIP. Sidelined for the initial two months of the season due to elbow inflammation, he is back to being one of baseball’s most-promising young pitchers.

What most stands out about Melton’s campaign to date? From an arsenal perspective, the answer has to be his cutter. Last season, he threw the pitch at a 10.8% clip to the tune of a .368 BAA and a 12.8% whiff rate. This year, the offering has elicited a .083 BAA and a 26.0% whiff rate while being thrown at a nearly-double 20.5% clip.

Why the increased reliance on his cutter, and why has it been so effective?

“I didn’t really change anything, which is the weirdest part,” Melton told me in the days leading up to the All-Star break. “I’ve just been throwing it way, way harder and getting a lot of swing-and-miss. I’ve been throwing my slider harder, too. I got one up to 91 [mph] in my last start, which is well above what I’d been doing previously.

“It’s definitely interesting,” the second-year big-leaguer continued. “It’s not even something I consciously changed, it’s just that I’ve had a little bit more intent. I realized that my intent wasn’t high enough, so I literally started trying to throw harder, and that didn’t sacrifice any execution. I’ve been executing just as good, if not better. My cutter has been kind of been the leading beneficiary of that.”

In terms of velocity, Melton’s cutter is averaging 92.2 mph, up from 90.9 mph in his rookie campaign. Locating the pitch better has likewise been a factor in its success, as has its role in his attack plan. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to Because You Asked, a series in which I’ll dive deeper on some of the players who readers inquire about in my weekly chats. These tend to be guys who were absent or only briefly mentioned on our last list cycle, or players with production that’s out of step with their reputation or scouting reports. Also, Jonah Tong. Hopefully this exercise allows me to just tap a sign every week instead of writing the same sentence or two; we’ll see how it goes. First up: Manuel Pena.

Pena is a 22-year-old utility prospect in the Diamondbacks system. We’ve written about him before — Eric and I ranked him 15th in Arizona’s system in 2022 as a projectable power hitter — but he quickly fell out of the main section of lists and was absent entirely during our last three cycles. This year, Pena has started games at first, third, and second base, as well as in left field, and while he has a little shortstop experience on his CV, he’s primarily a four-corner guy at this point. Nobody’s asking about the glove, though. Pena has drawn attention for one reason: Out of nowhere, he’s among the minor league leaders in home runs with 29. This comes after he’d hit 31 in the previous five seasons combined, so fans and readers understandably want an update here. Read the rest of this entry »

Something significant happens to Chase Burns around this time every year. In 2024, the Reds made him the no. 2 overall pick in the draft. A little less than 12 months later, the former Wake Forest flamethrower made his big league debut. This summer, Burns was named to his first All-Star team, paving the way for a seven-year, $105 million contract extension.

Burns’ new contract kicks in next year and runs through the 2033 season; and in a rare occasion for a pre-arbitration extension like this, there are no opt-outs, options, or escalators. Thank God — you need a degree in discrete mathematics to know how long Julio Rodríguez is under team control, so a simple contract structure is a refreshing change. Read the rest of this entry »

The All-Star break affords a good opportunity to run a full update of the ZiPS projections, since the lack of action allows me, the system’s flesh-and-blood creator, the time to refresh every speck of data that ZiPS uses before new games push over my tower of dominoes.

The ZiPS projected standings are the product of a million seasonal simulations; there’s a lot of PC power and a unfortunate amount of linear algebra involved. In order to get a better estimate of the upside and downside of a team, ZiPS takes the important additional step of simulating the roster itself before it ever considers a single game on the schedule. To illustrate, in most of the million simulations, Yordan Alvarez continues to treat opposing pitchers in a rather rude fashion, and sometimes, he even wins the Triple Crown. But in some simulations, he’s merely OK, while in others, he misses time due to injury. In a small percentage of those runs, the injury proves significant and prematurely ends his season. When a player is injured in a ZiPS simulation, the computer fills in the depth charts based on who is left standing. While this isn’t a perfect approach, the overall effect is to give us a range of expectations for the Astros, allowing us to peek as far as as we can into the future until the future actually arrives. Read the rest of this entry »