Archive for Daily Graphings

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 »

Fully appreciating what Phillies DH Kyle Schwarber is and does as a baseball player is harder than you’d think given that he really only does one thing.

Namely, this:

Obviously, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s more accurate to say that Schwarber is a distinct brand of a three-true-outcomes hitter. For his career, 49.4% of his plate appearances have ended in a strikeout, a walk, or a home run. But even among three-true-outcomes players, Schwarber is very homer-forward. Round-trippers make up a high ratio of his production, particularly among his peers who also own a batting average that hovers right around the leaguewide mark. Looking at qualified player-seasons where at least 49% of plate appearances ended in one of the three true outcomes and the player batted .255 or lower, Schwarber has three that rank in the top 10 in terms of the percentage of three true outcomes that were homers. Among that same subset of player-seasons, Schwarber has two that rank in the top six in terms of home runs per plate appearance (2025 and 2026) and four in the top 25 by home runs per hit (2022, 2023, 2025, and 2026). Read the rest of this entry »

The first deal of the 2026 trade deadline was interesting more than it was important.

On Wednesday, the Astros sent Lance McCullers Jr., Colton Gordon, and cash considerations to the Brewers in exchange for Jadyn Fielder, the son of Prince Fielder. The Athletic’s Chandler Rome described the deal as a “salary dump” for Houston, noting that owner Jim Crane convinced McCullers to waive his no-trade clause to help the team manage its budget and roster. The Brewers were happy to oblige, adding depth and taking on a new pitcher project, parting with the son of a franchise legend to do so.

The deal marks the end of an era in Houston. The Astros drafted McCullers 41st overall in 2012, the same year they took Carlos Correa first overall. He developed right alongside the Astros as they progressed from tankers to titans, often serving as an exemplar for their forward-thinking pitching strategy. Nobody threw a higher rate of curveballs (44%) from 2015 through 2018 than McCullers, even going so far as to throw 24 straight curveballs to close out a four-inning save in Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night, as I watched Luis Arraez, sparkler in hand, chatting with Otto Lopez outside the National League dugout, I couldn’t help but reflect on how he ended up in Philadelphia. This is Arraez’s fourth All-Star selection, but it’s also his first in four years. Although we’re only 90 games into the season, his 3.7 WAR is already a career high. As you surely know, the biggest improvement in his game came with the glove. Michael Rosen put it simply enough back in May, with an article titled “Luis Arraez Is Good at Defense Now.” At the time, Arraez had put up 5 FRV over 30 games. In the ensuing 61 games, he’s accrued another 3 FRV. The pace has slowed down, but he’s still grading out as an excellent defender (though the other defensive metrics admittedly disagree).

Today, however, we’re interested in Arraez’s offensive improvement. Arraez won his first batting title in 2022, and he did more than just put up a high batting average. He also walked more than he struck out, earning a 130 wRC+. He followed it up with a 131 mark in 2023, though he did so in a slightly different fashion. Both his walks and his strikeouts dropped below 6%, but he ran a .362 BABIP, which led to a .354 batting average. Essentially, he leaned way, way into his status as a contact god, and the sky-high BABIP made it all work out beautifully.

But Arraez took things too far. In 2024 and 2025 combined, his walk and strikeout rates fell below 5%, and his .307 BABIP, while above the league average, wasn’t good enough to carry an offensive profile that features no walks and no power. He ran a 107 combined wRC+, and because he was putting up negative value in the other parts of the game, he ended up with just 2.0 WAR. That put his value squarely between an average player and a replacement-level one. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are two things that are true about Red Sox owner John Henry:

1. He owns a newspaper, the Boston Globe.
2. He refuses to speak to the press.

Henry hasn’t taken questions from Red Sox reporters since 2020, amid the nuclear fallout of his club’s decision to trade Mookie Betts. Following Boston’s excision in April of longtime manager Alex Cora and five of his coaches, the Fenway Sports Group boss faced renewed calls to speak publicly.

“The owner’s silence isn’t golden,” wrote The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli, “it’s cowardly and speaks volumes about how one of the sport’s most iconic franchises has become rudderless.”

Stephanie Apstein, then of Sports Illustrated, also excoriated Henry for his refusal to face the music, declaring that he “should sell the team” — an opinion shared by the fans who chanted just that at Fenway Park earlier this season.

With the second half of their season beginning on Friday and the trade deadline fast approaching, the suddenly red-hot — but still sub-.500 — Red Sox face a crucial decision point. Will they be sellers if they scuffle or tread water coming out of the All-Star break? Or load up for a run at a wild card berth? Right now, Boston is only a half-game out of the final spot. Will chief baseball officer Craig Breslow be able to add salary to bolster his squad, winners of nine straight and 14 of its last 16? Through it all, Henry has kept mum. Read the rest of this entry »

Gage Jump is no. 73 on The Board and no. 2 on our Athletics prospect rankings. Moreover, he is now a big leaguer. Called up from Triple-A Las Vegas in late May, the 23-year-old southpaw has since made nine starts and logged a 3.51 ERA, a 3.31 FIP, and a 23.5% strikeout rate over 48 2/3 innings. Selected in the second round of the 2024 draft out of LSU, he debuted professionally last season and played at both High-A Lansing and Double-A Midland.

His pitching knowledge stands out nearly as much as his plus raw stuff and what our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen described back in April as a “super short arm action.” Jump is studious about his craft, and he has been since his days as a San Juan Capistrano prep player. Prior to joining the collegiate ranks, he was rated as the top left-handed pitcher in the state of California.

Jump discussed his data-influenced approach to pitching when the A’s played in Detroit this past week.

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David Laurila: What have you learned about pitching — specifically about yourself as a pitcher — since coming to pro ball?

Gage Jump: “Interesting. That’s a tough question. I would say that I was very fortunate to go to a good private school, and that when I was young I was introduced to things like Plyo balls and Rapsodo. Our head coach at JSierra [Catholic High School] brought out Kyle Boddy [from Driveline]. I wasn’t a big kid and wasn’t throwing very hard, so I wanted to understand what everything meant and how to get the ball to move a certain way. Of course, just because I know certain things doesn’t mean I’m able to make them happen, which is why I think pitching is so much fun. You’re always trying to develop and get better, and while you could know the answers, it’s still super hard to put your hand in a certain position, know where your body is at, and get [the results] you want. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Bryce Harper looked briefly like a villain. I’m sure you know the story by now, so I’ll keep this recap brief. On Thursday, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story about a gambler who is suing FanDuel and DraftKings for allegedly using “their products and VIP services to intentionally maximize addiction.” The specific VIP service that turned this into such a big story was a video, branded with the FanDuel logo, in which Harper thanked the fan for his support. The idea that the biggest stars in baseball are secretly recording videos as perquisites to keep deeply indebted gambling addicts hooked on FanDuel understandably outraged many people, but it was an odd story, because Harper was not known to have any affiliation with FanDuel.

The truth was, well, stupid. Harper really doesn’t have any affiliation with FanDuel. A FanDuel employee ordered the video on Cameo, and told Harper what to say. Harper read the script he was given, which included the phrase, “Your host Bryttanni from FanDuel wanted to make sure your Thanksgiving was extra special,” and then the employee slapped a logo on the video. Harper has since released a statement which read, in part, “I did not know FanDuel would do this, I did not consent to it, and FanDuel had no right to do it. Had I known FanDuel’s true intent, I would not have made the video.” That’s about as unequivocal as it gets. Harper said the request was for a personal video, and that “Cameo had a separate category for business video requests, and at the time I did not know this video would be used for commercial purposes.” The statement also included screenshots of the instructions he received through Cameo, script and all. Harper isn’t really the villain here.

It’s not at all surprising that someone who spends their workdays figuring out how to squeeze more money out of people with gambling problems would try to get a video like this made. What’s surprising is that they were actually able to do it. In this article, I’m going to ask and answer several smaller questions about the relationship between Cameo and baseball. I’m doing so to compensate for the fact that I have no way of answering the really big question that’s staring us right in the face: Why the heck is Bryce Harper on Cameo? Read the rest of this entry »

PHILADELPHIA — “What could Jac Caglianone possibly have done to these people?” I thought to myself on Monday night. The young Kansas City Royals slugger has scarcely been in the majors a year; he’s played the Phillies only six times and not accomplished much. Surely Phillies fans didn’t have a consensus view — good or bad — on his college career at the University of Florida. If there is a historical grudge against the Royals, it’s faded to nothingness 46 years after the two teams met in the World Series.

And yet he was getting booed. I didn’t understand it. Surely Philadelphia would be predisposed to love this up-and-coming Italian-American slugger with 80-grade power and an inoffensive home market. Not all of the 43,000 sweat-drenched unfortunates in attendance were Phillies fans — enough Orioles diehards had made the trip up from Baltimore to make their customary National Anthem shout audible throughout the park — but the majority of the onlookers were locals.

And they were letting Caglianone have it.

Then Jordan Walker ducked through the arch to have Michael Buffer call his name, and the fans’ opprobrium continued. Instantly, it was clear: Hometown heroes Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper were in the Home Run Derby field, and everyone else was going to get jeered mercilessly. Read the rest of this entry »

JJ Wetherholt is one of the biggest All-Star snubs this year, but he still had a pretty great end to the first half of his rookie season. On Friday, he agreed to an eight-year contract extension that runs until the end of the 2034 season. Wetherholt is hitting .259/.356/.399 for a 114 wRC+ and 3.5 WAR, the last number leading the St. Louis Cardinals and ranking second among all second basemen, in a virtual tie with Brice Turang and trailing only Luis Arraez, whose advantage of two-tenths of a win comes from his time as a DH. The eight-year deal guarantees that Wetherholt will make $112.5 million, with the potential to net an additional $20 million from MVP votes and All-Star appearances. He also receives a $2 million signing bonus this fall, which ensures he’ll get something soon if the upcoming CBA negotiation proves to be an extended one.

We can argue all day whether or not Wetherholt is the most glaring All-Star omission this year, but with eight of the top 10 second basemen by WAR not making the cut, and a whole bunch of other positions to dig through, I’d have to write a very different article to tackle that question. But it’s inarguable that Wetherholt is having a marvelous rookie season, and is one of the favorites to win NL Rookie of the Year honors when it’s over. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Walker was down to his last swing. Then he got another, and another, and another. When he finally stopped swinging, he was the Home Run Derby champ.

The Cardinals right fielder won the 2026 Home Run Derby in Philadelphia on Monday with five straight do-or-die swings. Hometown favorite Kyle Schwarber led off the final round and hit 11. That brought Walker to the plate under a chorus of boos from fans at Citizens Bank Park — boos that persisted and only grew stronger with every home run.

Walker tallied just eight homers in his 15 allotted swings for the final round, but new Derby rules this year did not allow rounds to end on a home run, so batters could keep swinging so long as they kept going yard. And so Walker kept swinging — and kept going yard. He launched his ninth and 10th long balls before crushing a 450-foot shot to left center to tie Schwarber. Walker took a brief pause to catch his breath, then took one last swing to end it. Read the rest of this entry »