The chances of Bailey Ober’s start on Sunday sending the Minnesota Twins to the postseason have taken quite a hit in the last 24 hours. A 13-inning loss to the Miami Marlins dropped the September-swooning club to three games out in the Wild Card race with just three left to play. Still, whatever his team’s recent struggles, from a personal standpoint, the 29-year-old right-hander has had a successful season. Over 30 starts comprising 173 2/3 innings, Ober has a 12-8 record to go with a 3.94 ERA, a 3.81 FIP, a 27.1% strikeout rate, and 2.9 WAR. Enjoying what has objectively been a career-best year, he has stood tall in the Twins rotation.

I sat down with Ober on the penultimate weekend of the season to talk about his continuing evolution as a pitcher. I also checked in with Twins pitching coach Pete Maki to get his perspective on the 6-foot-9 hurler’s development path. The two first worked together in 2018, one year after Minnesota drafted Ober out of the College of Charleston in the 12th round.

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David Laurila: You have a good understanding of pitching analytics and how they can positively impact success. How has that process evolved for you?

Bailey Ober: “I feel like I started getting into all that stuff when I got drafted. We have an unbelievable team here with guys who provide all that information, and it’s kind of up to us if we want to take it and use it to our benefit. Once I got drafted into the minor leagues, I was very interested in seeing all the data. Over the years, you’re always learning. There is always new stuff coming up. For instance, there are new stats, new analytic tools to be used. Every year I’ve been taking in what I can, and continuing to learn.” Read the rest of this entry »

With the playoff fields in both leagues nearly set, we here at FanGraphs are turning our focus to how teams set up for October. Jay Jaffe has been covering the best players at each position among the contenders, as well as the worst. Dan Szymborski looked into the particulars of playoff lineup construction. Inspired by Meg Rowley, I’m taking a different tack: I’m looking for the players, strategies, and matchups that could be the difference between success and failure for each team.

We already know who the best players in baseball are, and they will of course be hugely important in the postseason. But less heralded players frequently have a lot to say about who takes home the World Series trophy. Think Steve Pearce and David Freese lengthening their respective lineups to turn those offenses from good to great, or the Braves bullpen mowing down the opposition in 2021. (On the flip side, you don’t hear a lot about teams let down by their supporting casts, because they mostly lose early on.) The best players aren’t always the most pivotal. In that spirit, I went through each team and focused on one potential pivot point. I looked at the American League yesterday; today, the National League gets its turn. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers’ defeat of the Padres on Wednesday night did a lot to clear up the last suspenseful division race by restoring their NL West lead to three games, reducing their magic number to two, and cutting the San Diego’s odds of winning the division to 3%. The bigger story, however — an infuriating one given commissioner Rob Manfred’s unwillingness to override the Braves’ profit-minded intransigence with some proactive schedule shifting — is the Hurricane Helene-induced postponement of the final two games of the Mets-Braves series. Unless the Diamondbacks slide completely out of the picture, the two NL East rivals will now play a 1:10 p.m. ET doubleheader in Atlanta on Monday, the day after the scheduled end of the regular season. Whichever of the two teams survives (possibly both) would then face flights to Milwaukee (locked in as the third seed) and/or California (either Los Angeles or San Diego as the fourth seed) to start their respective Wild Card series the next day, with their pitching staffs at a significant disadvantage. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Anyway, having gone around the horn and then some to identify the strongest players at each position among the remaining contenders in the National and American Leagues, we now turn to the weakest ones. This is something of an offshoot of my annual Replacement Level Killers series, and in fact, even some confirmed October participants have spots that still fit the bill as true lineup sinkholes, only this time with no trade deadline to help fill them. For this, I’m considering full-season performance but with an eye to who’s best or worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Unlike the Killers series, I’m also considering pitching, with the shortening of rotations and bullpens factoring into my deliberations.

In this installment, I’ll highlight the biggest trouble spots from among an NL field that includes the Phillies, Brewers, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks, Mets, and Braves. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, the Oakland Athletics will play their final home game ever. They have played in the Oakland Coliseum ever since the team moved from Kansas City in 1968. The Coliseum has set the scene for World Series triumphs and collapses. It has been home to the greatest basestealer in the history of the world, some of the most magnificent mustaches the game has ever seen, and at least one possum.

The Coliseum opened in 1966, part of the wave of multipurpose stadiums that swept the country. The concrete behemoth was never the warmest stadium, but its character was unmistakable. In recent years, it hasn’t exactly fallen into disrepair; rather, it’s been deliberately pushed. Like the team on the field, it’s been allowed to atrophy in order to demonstrate how badly the organization needs (never wants) out of Oakland. After last night’s game, groundskeepers patiently scooped dirt from the field for grateful fans who wanted a memento. Below, some of our writers share their memories of the Coliseum and the A’s in Oakland. We encourage you to share your own memories in the comments section. – Davy Andrews Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago White Sox haven’t had much go their way this year, and that includes the pitching department. Only Garrett Crochet (4.4) and the since-traded Erick Fedde (2.6) have produced as much as 1.3 WAR. Those things said, a few young pitchers have shown promise, one of them being 24-year-old rookie right-hander Jonathan Cannon. Over 119 2/3 innings, the 2022 third-round pick out of the University of Georgia has logged a 4.37 ERA, a 4.57 FIP, and 1.2 WAR — not sexy numbers, but thanks to a five-pitch mix and a cerebral approach to his craft, his potential is real. Prior to the season, Eric Longenhagen assigned Cannon a 45 FV, calling him “a high-floored no. 4/5 starter prospect thanks to his repertoire depth and command.”

Cannon discussed his M.O. on the mound when the White Sox visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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David Laurila: You’re primarily known for your sinker, which you’ve thrown more than any of your other pitches this season. It’s also the pitch you’ve had the least success with from a statistical standpoint. Why is that?

Jonathan Cannon: “For the most part, it’s been the command of it being bad. If you look at the best sinkerballers in the game right now — I’m thinking guys like Logan Webb — what makes their sinkers so good is they do a really good job of commanding it down-and-away to righties. It kind of sets up everything else. When they’re missing, they’re missing down, but more middle. Right now, I feel like I command the outer half well, but a lot of them are elevated to around thigh high. When it leaks into the middle and is thigh high, I don’t get a lot of groundballs with it. That’s kind of been the main focus for me. When I do miss, I want to miss where I’m getting a groundball rather than a hard line drive into the gap. Read the rest of this entry »

The last week of the regular season isn’t quite as fun as the first week of the playoffs, but it’s close. Everyone’s scoreboard-watching, doing back-of-the-napkin math to track who can clinch when and under what circumstances, and also wondering how on Earth the Mariners are still technically alive. It’s the time of year when Jay Jaffe turns a warm, rich copper color and transforms into a glowing orb.

Since 2022, the last week of the season has been a little less interesting. Up until that point (with one or two exceptions), MLB had taken a unique view toward ties in the standings. Where other leagues in other sports would settle a deadlock by going down a list of tiebreakers, MLB teams would settle ties on the field, with a (usually one-game, sometimes three-game) playoff before the actual playoffs.

For generations, this system made sense. In a league with either two or four divisions and only one or two playoff rounds, the stakes were incredibly high, and time was abundant. And it produced some incredible moments: the Bucky Dent homer, the Giants soaking the infield to slow down Maury Wills, the Matt Holliday slide… oh, and the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, probably the most famous non-World Series play in baseball history. Read the rest of this entry »

With the playoff fields in both leagues nearly set, we here at FanGraphs are turning our focus to how teams set up for October. Jay Jaffe has covered the best players at each position among the contenders, with a run down of the worst positions in each league still to come. Dan Szymborski looked into the particulars of playoff lineup construction. Inspired by Meg Rowley, I’m taking a different tack: I’m looking for the players, strategies, and matchups that could be the difference between success and failure for each team.

We already know who the best players in baseball are, and they will of course be hugely important in the postseason. But less heralded players frequently have a lot to say about who takes home the World Series trophy. Think Steve Pearce and David Freese lengthening their respective lineups to turn those offenses from good to great, or the Braves bullpen mowing down the opposition in 2021. (On the flip side, you don’t hear a lot about teams let down by their supporting casts, because they mostly lose early on.) The best players aren’t always the most pivotal. In that spirit, I went through each team and focused on one potential pivot point. I’m looking at the American League today, with the National League to follow tomorrow.

New York Yankees: Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Giancarlo Stanton

It’s not hard to come up with a game plan against the Yankees offense. It involves putting giant red boxes around Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, who have been the two best hitters in baseball this year, and writing “don’t let these guys beat us” in bold lettering beneath those boxes. The Yankees have the best wRC+ in baseball, all while their non-Judge/non-Soto hitters have combined for a 93 wRC+, the rough equivalent of the Washington Nationals. Sure, every team would be worse without its two best hitters, but not this much worse. Every pitcher who faces New York will have spent the vast majority of their preparation time looking at Judge and Soto, and building everything around that.

The easiest way to overcome Soto and Judge is to avoid them. I don’t mean intentionally walking them every time, though I’m sure Judge will receive his fair share of free passes. But teams will try to get those two to chase and avoid giving in even when behind in the count against them, which will result in plenty of walks the natural way. There’s going to be a ton of traffic on the bases for the team’s number four hitter, either Austin Wells or Jazz Chisholm Jr./Giancarlo Stanton depending on the matchup.

Wells has hit a rookie wall in the last month, with an 18 wRC+ in the last 30 days. Righties have simplified their attack against him, hammering the zone with fastballs and then aiming sliders at his back foot. This feels like the kind of slump that’s part fatigue and part adjusting to the majors. Wells hasn’t been aggressive enough on early-count fastballs (his swing rate on in-zone fastballs in the first two pitches of an at-bat has fallen from 64% to 54%), and so pitchers are taking the invitation to get ahead. Given how many runners tend to be on base in front of him, that approach will probably continue. It’s up to him to make opposing pitchers reconsider.

Chisholm and Stanton have split reps as the Judge follower with a lefty on the mound, and I’m not sure who will end up with the job. Like Wells, Chisholm has been too passive on early-count fastballs in his protection role, and he’s getting some tough counts and chase pitches as a reward. Still, I’m more optimistic about his outlook than Wells’. Chisholm might be taking fewer swings at crushable pitches, but he’s laying off tough breaking balls too, so it feels like part of a coordinated approach designed to minimize bad swings, and I don’t see an obvious plan of attack here for opposing lefties.

Pitchers attack Stanton high in the zone, where he’s prone to swinging under well-located fastballs. It’s a carnival game, almost: hit the brass ring on the high inside corner, and you’ll win a strikeout. Miss low, and you might surrender a home run. I expect the Yankees to deploy Stanton against pitchers who are less comfortable up in the zone, while Chisholm gets the nod against four-seam specialists.

How these three are able to respond to opposing game plans will go a long way towards deciding the Yankees’ fate this October. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, too; if these four-spot hitters struggle, teams will naturally become more and more cautious with Soto and Judge, giving more opportunities to the guys behind them. If the four-hole hitters start to click, avoiding the two in front of them becomes less palatable.

Cleveland Guardians: Joey Cantillo and Matthew Boyd

The Guardians have used a simple blueprint to storm to one of the best records in the AL: timely hitting, great defense, and a lockdown bullpen. That’s how you end up with 90-plus wins despite a bottom-five starting rotation, one that looked sketchy heading into the year and lost Shane Bieber almost immediately. Tanner Bibee has been great, and Alex Cobb has been effective when not injured, but the spots after that are up for grabs.

In the past month or so, Joey Cantillo and Matthew Boyd have been the best options. Cantillo, in particular, has shown huge swing-and-miss upside, and he’s done it by using his best pitch, a changeup, more than a third of the time. He still has a fastball-heavy approach, and that pitch is probably his worst, but I expect that to change somewhat in the playoffs. With more off days and more bullpen availability overall, I think the Guardians will ask Cantillo to focus on his changeup and curveball, cut down on fastballs, and pitch twice through the order at max effort. He’s been intermittently great at doing just that, and when he’s on, the Guardians might not need to score much to win.

Boyd joined the Guardians when they were desperate for innings, and he’s been a pleasant second-half surprise. Still, I’m a lot less convinced by his performance than Cantillo’s. Call it the “new is always better” effect, because I’ve seen plenty of Boyd starts over the years and feel like I know what I’m getting at this point. That said, if he can put up average results in a five-and-dive role, the Guardians’ outlook will improve greatly. Their biggest weakness is always going to be the rotation, but Boyd and Cantillo have been great of late, and the rotation has actually been in the top half of baseball in the last month. For one of the weakest offenses in the AL field, improved run prevention would be a huge boon.

Houston Astros: Framber Valdez

The Astros look like a mirror image of the Guardians in a lot of ways. Despite adding Josh Hader, their bullpen has been a weakness thanks to a combination of injuries and regression. The defense isn’t great. But between resurgent bats and a few great starters, they’re putting up early runs and giving their bullpen enough cushion to make things work. Their second-half surge has been keyed by starting pitching in general, and by Framber Valdez in particular.

Valdez had been quietly bad for about a year by the time this All-Star break rolled around. From July 15, 2023 through July 15, 2024, he compiled a 4.13 ERA and 4.01 FIP. He’s always relied on producing a huge number of grounders, but changes in his fastball shape eroded that edge last summer, and it took him quite a while to adjust his game accordingly. His solution has been simple: use his best pitch more frequently. Valdez’s curveball is one of the best in the game, and he’s leaning on it:

More curveballs, more whiffs, more strikeouts, plummeting ERA — he looks like a whole new Valdez. He’s even getting more grounders again, at least partially because hitters are forced to look for the curveball more often and take emergency swings against sinkers. He’s been one of the best starters in the game over the past few months. That’s mostly what people already thought of Valdez – the top starter on a top team – but for a minute there, it wasn’t quite true. Now he looks dominant again, and he’s pitching deep into games too; he’s pitched into the seventh inning in six of his last 10 starts. The Astros could use that combination of length and quality, because if they’re going deep into their bullpen, things could get ugly.

Baltimore Orioles: Jordan Westburg

These don’t all have to be complicated. When Jordan Westburg broke his hand on July 31, the Orioles were a game back of the best record in baseball. Since then, they’ve gone 22-26, and his replacements haven’t impressed. Jackson Holliday hasn’t exactly replicated his nightmare April call-up, but he has a 70 wRC+ since returning to the majors. Emmanuel Rivera has been hitting well, but he’s more of a utility infielder/platoon piece than an everyday starter. Westburg’s presence means that Baltimore’s lineup makes sense; it felt stretched when he was out.

Broken hands are notoriously difficult injuries to forecast. Sometimes recovery is swift and complete. Sometimes power is slow to come back even as everything else rebounds. There’s no strict timeline; we simply don’t know how he’ll look. There’s also the matter of rust. After a brief rehab stint, the O’s activated Westburg over the weekend, but that still means only having about a week to get back up to major league conditioning and form before the games start to count.

Plenty of Baltimore’s hitters have had power outages in the second half — it’s not like you can pin the team’s entire swoon on Westburg’s absence. Adley Rutschman, in particular, looks worn down to me, and Anthony Santander and Ryan O’Hearn have cooled off. But Westburg’s return is a huge potential boost. If he’s back to his former self, the lineup gets scary to navigate. If he’s still not 100%, the other options aren’t amazing. Keep your eyes out to see how he handles inside fastballs, often a tough pitch to deal with if your hand is still hurt.

Detroit Tigers: Performance Against Good Fastballs

The Tigers seem to have worked out a good plan on the pitching front: Let Tarik Skubal cook, and fill in everything else with bullpen innings. But that’s only half the equation. They need to score runs, too, and that’s been a challenge this year. They’ve scored the fewest runs of any potential playoff team, and it’s not fluky; they have the worst wRC+ of the bunch, and they’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to baserunning.

To make matters worse, the Tigers have been especially weak against good fastballs. Only five teams in baseball have done worse against fastballs 96 mph and above this year: the Rockies, White Sox, Blue Jays, Marlins, and Rays. (They’re also bad against fastballs 95 and above, to be clear – 96 just feels like the new definition of “hard fastball” as velo keeps creeping up.) That’s not good company to keep, and the playoffs are chock full of hard fastballs. In the 2023 regular season, 10.4% of all pitches were fastballs thrown 96 mph or harder. In the playoffs, that crept up to 15.5%. Teams with hard-throwing relievers make the playoffs more often, and they also use their best relievers more while asking their starters to throw harder in shorter bursts in October. If you’re weak against velocity, teams will come after you.

Spencer Torkelson has had well-publicized struggles against hard stuff. Matt Vierling, Jace Jung, and Trey Sweeney, all of whom will start plenty in the playoffs, have looked overmatched this year against very good heaters. Kerry Carpenter and Colt Keith are doing damage against them, so look for opponents to attack the lefty-heavy heart of the Detroit lineup (Carpenter, Keith, and Riley Greene) with secondary-heavy lefties and then bring the thunder against everyone else. The Tigers are going to see a lot of fast pitches in the strike zone. If they can’t handle them, it might make for a short October run. If they can, their offense will surprise to the upside.

Kansas City Royals: GB/FB Ratio Allowed

The Royals are one of the best defensive teams in baseball, and the eye test and defensive models agree. But while the Bobby Witt Jr.-led infield is outstanding, the outfield is more of a mixed bag. Center fielder Kyle Isbel has been great in 2024, but he’s not getting much help. Tommy Pham is a hair below average in right, hardly surprising given that he’s 36. MJ Melendez is one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball. Isbel covers so much ground that he can make up for some shortcomings, but one man can only run so fast. Think of it this way: Per Statcast, Kansas City’s infield defense has been 31 outs above average. Their outfielders have been three outs above average, and that’s with Garrett Hampson putting in solid work in left when Melendez isn’t available. The Royals’ preferred lineup is light on outfield defense, in other words.

The Royals pitching staff isn’t particularly focused on grounders, though. They’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to GB/FB ratio, and Brady Singer is the only one of their playoff starters who effectively keeps the ball on the ground. Opposing teams will be looking to elevate against the Royals, keeping the ball away from Witt’s all-encompassing glove. That might go double in Kansas City, where Kauffman Stadium’s cavernous confines mean that balls in the gap can travel a long way. Isbel is so good that he can cover for some of the corner deficiencies, but if the Royals’ opponents can pepper the pull side in the air, Kansas City’s defensive excellence will be blunted.

Minnesota Twins: Bridge Relievers

Let’s throw in the Twins as a bonus, even though they’re out of playoff position at the moment. They’re two back in the loss column with four left to play, which doesn’t leave them much margin for error. On the bright side, though, they hold the tiebreaker over both the Royals and Tigers, which gives them an outside chance at sneaking into the field if either of their divisional rivals hits a banana peel in the last series of the year. We give them a 22.8% chance of making the playoffs, which feels like enough of a shot to include in this article.

The business end of the Minnesota bullpen is fearsome. Jhoan Duran isn’t having his best season, but he’s clearly one of the better closers in the game. Griffin Jax has been outstanding. He has five plus pitches and is commanding them well, absolutely overwhelming opponents in the process. He might end up as the most valuable reliever in baseball this year when you consider volume, leverage, and results.

Should the Twins make the postseason, Duran and Jax are going to be very busy. But they can’t pitch all of the relief innings, and the guys behind them are question marks. Louie Varland has a 5.79 FIP (don’t even ask about the ERA, it’s ugly) and is coming into bigger spots than any Minnesota reliever aside from the top duo. Cole Sands has had an up-and-down season, and we consider him their secondary setup man after Jax. Scott Blewett and Ronny Henriquez have seen their strikeout rates plummet to borderline unplayable levels. Caleb Thielbar is dancing on a knife’s edge between effectively wild and unable to find the zone.

To be clear, this isn’t a case of an unfixably bad unit. I think Thielbar is an impact lefty when he’s right. Varland has premium stuff. Henriquez’s changeup is a weapon. Starting with Duran and Jax is a huge tailwind. It isn’t hard to imagine a world where some of the bullpen options pop and the Twins suddenly have a dominant relief corps.

But that hasn’t happened this year. Minnesota’s bullpen is playing its worst baseball of the season over the past few weeks – they have a 4.80 ERA even with the two top options taken into account, and a 5.33 without them. The middle innings are feeling shakier than ever, and that’s particularly concerning given that the starting rotation has been covering fewer innings since Joe Ryan hit the IL. If this group rises to the occasion, the Twins will look like a completely different team than they have so far this September. But, uh, that’s kind of the problem: Right now they don’t look very good.

Tuesday night was big for clinching. The Astros secured the AL West, leaving only the AL East and the NL West in play. The Guardians became the first team to clinch a first-round bye, and both the Orioles and Padres clinched playoff berths, the latter by getting the final three outs via a triple play against the Dodgers, a confluence of circumstances unprecedented in major league history. Where we entered Tuesday with 10 teams fighting for seven remaining berths, we’re down to seven teams battling for four spots. But even with the playoff field not fully set, we thought it would be a fun and worthwhile exercise to highlight various facets of the potential October teams by going around the diamond to identify the strongest and weakest at each position in each league.

As noted in Tuesday’s installment, which focused on the strongest positions among the remaining NL contenders, this is something of an offshoot of my annual Replacement Level Killers series, and in fact, even some confirmed October participants have spots that still fit the bill as true lineup sinkholes — think first base for the Yankees and Brewers — only this time with no trade deadline to help fill them. For this, I’m considering full-season performance but with an eye to who’s best or worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Unlike the Killers series, I’m also considering pitching, with the shortening of rotations and bullpens factoring into my deliberations.

For this installment, I’ll go around the American League, highlighting each position’s best among the remaining contenders. In this case that limits the field to the Yankees, Orioles, Guardians, Tigers, Royals, Twins, Astros, and Mariners, with the last of those admittedly on the ropes, down two and a half games in the Wild Card race, with the Twins half a game ahead of them, and Playoff Odds of just 2.9%. Read the rest of this entry »

Julio Rodríguez’s season was growing bleaker and bleaker by the day as he labored through the longest slump of his short career. We had expected him to get right sooner than later — after all, he’s one of the most talented players in the sport, with an explosive bat, top-shelf sprint speed, and a cannon of an arm — but it was worrisome to see him struggle for so long. He had an 86 wRC+ across 360 plate appearances at the end of June.

Over the last few months, though, Rodríguez has progressively figured things out, with his turnaround culminating with his current heater. Since July 1, he is batting .321/.377/.545 with 12 home runs and a 166 wRC+, and over his last 10 games, fueled by his .458/.471/.833 line, five homers, and 270 wRC+, he’s added 1.3 WAR to his ledger. He is a key reason why the Mariners are still in the playoff race with less than a week remaining in the season, though you could also make the case that his overall underperformance is one of the reasons why Seattle is barely hanging around. Either way, to better understand the story of Rodríguez’s season, we have to dive deeper into his struggles.

Rodríguez pitch-by-pitch performance data show he spent the first three months of the season almost exclusively hunting fastballs, which isn’t a bad idea considering he feasts on them. The problem was that because his eyes were focused only on one speed, he started swinging at any pitch that he thought might be a fastball, and as a result, he was chasing too many breaking balls and offspeed pitches.

During the first three months of this season, Rodríguez may have been the worst everyday hitter against offspeed pitches in the entire sport. Among the 260 batters who saw at least 50 offspeed pitches outside the zone through the end of June, he had the second-worst chase rate at 54.9%, behind Nick Gordon. As a result, Rodríguez had a .157 wOBA against offspeed pitches, which dragged down his overall numbers, especially because he also had trouble against breaking balls (.232 wOBA).

Rodríguez’s feast-on-fastballs approach corresponded with a swing deviation that limited his production. In previous seasons, Rodríguez thrived because of his swing variability, which allowed him to do damage against different pitches in different locations. That is an essential skill for him because he is one of the more aggressive hitters in baseball. However, during the first months of this season, because he seemed to be selling out for fastballs, his hacks were too noisy on most of his swings. That type of one-dimensional swing is designed to crush higher-velocity meatballs — and, even as he struggled, he was still doing that — but it is susceptible to pretty much everything else.

When looking at SEAGER, it becomes clearer that Rodríguez truly did have an eat-the-meatball approach. Yet despite his increased chase rate against offspeed pitches, his SEAGER has actually improved from last year. His Selectivity% is about league average as of this week, in the 54th percentile (mainly due to recent improvements), but his Hittable Pitch Take% is in the 97th percentile, meaning he is rarely letting pitches he can damage pass him by. Altogether, he is in the 95th percentile for SEAGER, a jump from last year’s 69th percentile score. At first glance, this might seem contradictory, that he’s making better swing decisions during his worst season. But just because he is swinging at hittable pitches doesn’t mean those swings have enough variability to produce against pitches with different speeds and locations.

The thing is, even though Rodríguez was hunting heaters with a swing that is tailored to damage them, it doesn’t seem like he intentionally altered his mechanics. Rather, the two changes likely came about simultaneously and spiraled as they reinforced each other. Here’s what probably happened: After getting off to a slow start, he began pressing to break out of his funk and tried to clobber the most hittable pitches he saw, leading to a one-dimensional, fastball-dependent swing.

Rodríguez is at his best when he has a flatter Vertical Bat Angle (VBA). VBA is the angle of the barrel relative to the ground at contact. So that means his best performance has come when his bat has been flatter at contact. That could mean deeper contact and/or a flatter entry into the hitting zone. Flat swings don’t work for all hitters, but for a someone like Rodríguez who creates so much bat speed deep in the zone, they typically are a recipe for success. Over the first three months of the season, Rodríguez had the steepest VBA of his career, ranging between 33.4 to 35.5 degrees; this stretch coincided with his below-average offensive production. Since the beginning of July, though, he’s flattened his VBA to somewhere between 30 and 31 degrees, much more in line with his career norms.

Rodríguez’s upper body mechanics are crucial to his swing because they determine the path his bat takes to the ball. He has a louder bat row, similar to those of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Rafael Devers, two hitters who also have swings on the flatter side. Noisy movements help batters generate power and time up their swings, but with more movement comes more room for error when something goes awry. Having an effectively loud swing requires maintenance and attention to ensure the delicate balance between power and control doesn’t fall out of whack.

If Rodríguez’s swing had unintentionally become more vertically oriented because of a different setup or row, that could have disrupted where he perceived his bat to be in space (proprioception) and hindered his contact quality and frequency. This all makes sense in theory, but let’s confirm it with some video analysis. The first two swings below are from May and the next two are from July:

May

July

You can see a much more toned-down bat row in July compared to what it was in May. Since Rodríguez isn’t moving it as aggressively in the pre-swing, his bat starts on a flatter plane when he descends into his downswing. That helps decrease the amount of time it takes to get his barrel into the zone and is more in line with where his swing has been in the past.

Now, let’s compare two swings, one from last season when he was rolling, and another from the second half of this season, as he returned to form:

2023

His mechanics aren’t identical, but they are much closer now than they were when he was struggling during the first few months of this year. Pay attention to the angle of his bat throughout the row and how far his hands drift from his body. Maintaining the connection between his barrel/hands and the rest of his upper body is paramount for him to control his barrel.

As a last piece of information to consider, I was curious about how Rodríguez’s bat speed changed as his row calmed down a bit and his swing flattened back out. This month, his bat speed has ticked up significantly compared to the first three months of the season. He’s swinging at an average velocity of 77.7 mph in September, a sizable spike from April through June, when his average swing was just under 76.0 mph. If flatter means faster, then it sounds like he should stay where he’s at right now.

Any Mariners fan would tell you that in the first few months when Rodríguez was struggling, he was clearly pressing. Any player would tell you that when you start pressing, your swing can regress because of it. You try and hack your way back to your normal numbers and get too far from the best version of yourself. It’s an intuitive story.

Considering the Mariners were just eliminated from the AL West race Tuesday night and currently sit 2.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot with four games to play, it would have been nice for them to have gotten this version of Rodríguez a bit sooner. But the season isn’t over just yet. Maybe the young superstar can propel his team into an unlikely playoff berth. After “The J-Rod Show” got off to such a slow start this year, that would be an especially epic season finale.

Except for the standings, which include Tuesday’s results, all stats are updated as of Tuesday morning.

Last night, the Royals finally won a baseball game. In doing so, they snapped a seven-game losing streak that very nearly burned up their 5.5-game cushion in the Wild Card standings. The only reason they’re still in position for the third spot this morning is that the Twins have lost five of their last six. Even so, the Royals did everything in their power to avoid getting the win last night. They stranded nine baserunners over the first four innings and squandered a brilliant start from Cole Ragans. They took a scoreless game into the 10th inning, and they scored (for the first time in 27 innings) only because the Nationals did everything short of driving the zombie runner around the bases in the bullpen cart. The Manfred Man scored when the Nationals threw the ball away in the top of the 10th. In the bottom of the inning, with a runner on third base and two outs, the Nationals did the Royals another favor, removing Nasim Nuñez, who has a .386 on-base percentage, in favor of Joey Gallo, whose OBP is more than 100 points lower. In the most Joey Gallo plate appearance of all time, the slugger was one pitch from walking, then 10 feet from wrapping the game-winning homer around the right field foul pole, before finally striking out.

Now that the Royals have finally won a game, it’s time to investigate what exactly went wrong. The numbers weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible either. During the streak, they ran an 88 wRC+, which ranked 20th over that period. Their 3.24 FIP was the second best in baseball, and their 3.79 ERA ranked 14th. They hit 10 more homers than they allowed and their strikeout differential was up above 40. No matter. Six of those seven losses were decided by either one or two runs. They just kept finding a way to lose, because they were cursed. At a certain point, that’s just the simplest explanation. In order for Kansas City to break its streak, the team required the good fortune of running into a Nationals team that had lost six of its last seven, had already clinched its fifth consecutive losing season, and played as if it badly wanted to throw away a ballgame. In other words, the only thing that saved the accursed Royals was running into a team that was somehow even more despised by the movers of the universe. After all, if there’s one thing the baseball gods love, it’s whatever fits neatly into a baseball writer’s pre-existing narrative.

What did the Royals do to anger the baseball gods so? That’s what we’re here to find out. The baseball gods can be hard to please and even harder to understand. They’re vindictive. They’re unpredictable. Sometimes they like bunting, and yet other times, not so much. So let’s focus on what we know. Clearly, this infraction occurred on September 14, the date of Kansas City’s last victory before the freefall. In order to figure out what went wrong, I went back and watched the game closely, taking detailed notes about any and all possible transgressions. Surely, one of these infractions had to be the reason for the skid.

First Inning

Well, here’s a gimme right off the bat. This team is literally called the Royals. They’ve got crowns all over their uniforms and their stadiums. Ever heard of hubris, Kansas City? You’re claiming the divine right of kings; no wonder the almighty wants to see you laid low. Maybe dial it down to the Kansas City Nobles. If you want to be extra safe, you could go with the Kansas City Miserable Wretches. Just like the rest of us, the baseball gods love an underdog.

As if that weren’t enough, the second batter of the game, Bobby Witt Jr. crushed a majestic home run. If this isn’t hubris, I don’t know what else to call it.

He’s flapping his wings like a bird. What do the Royals call this celebration, the Icarus Dance? All season long, Witt has been flying too close to the sun (which in this tortured metaphor is Aaron Judge, I guess), and now his wax wings have melted and he’s fallen into the ocean to be devoured by the Detroit Tigers. Like I said, this is just the simplest explanation.

Second Inning

This is the final pitch of the second inning. It’s a four-seamer to Yasmani Grandal that’s supposed to be on the outside corner but instead ends up low and inside. It’s a mistake, but it’s still a good location. Starter Michael Wacha marches off the mound, certain that it’s strike three. Grandal thinks it’s ball four, and he starts toward first base and winds up to toss his bat over toward the dugout. When he finds out he’s instead been called out on strikes, he shouts, “No, man,” followed by a 70-grade F-bomb. But watch catcher Freddy Fermin behind home plate. He winds up to throw the ball back to Wacha before realizing that it needs to go to the first baseman.

It’s not clear whether Fermin thought the pitch was a ball, didn’t realize that it was strike three, or didn’t realize that it was the third out. Either way, he’s tempting fate. There’s one player on the field who’s always supposed to know the situation, and it’s the catcher. If it’s enough to make old-school baseball men weep into their beer, it’s enough to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing.

Third Inning

Nothing to see here. Just a normal popup, right? Take a closer look, and this time keep your eye on Wacha. He doesn’t shout, “Up!” He doesn’t even point toward the sky in order to help any fielders who somehow made it to the big leagues despite lacking the spatial awareness to remember which direction up is. He’s violating one of baseball’s iron-clad laws. It’s in the rulebook. It’s in the unwritten rules. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Constitution. When the batter hits a popup, the pitcher points up and yells, “Up!” It’s the only thing that keeps the sky from falling.

Two innings earlier, Wacha remembered to point when he induced a popup from the exact same hitter. What makes this omission even weirder is that Wacha is especially well-suited to this easiest of tasks. If you watch the play again, you’ll notice that he does raise his right hand pretty high. It’s part of his follow-through, and he does it after every pitch. All he needed to do was extend his index finger. There’s nobody in baseball for whom this effort could’ve be easier, and yet Wacha couldn’t be bothered. Three Finger Brown is rolling over in his grave.

Fourth Inning

Do the baseball gods hate bat flips? It’s hard to say. I’d like to think that they keep up with the times, and that while celebrating a home run was once the kind of trespass that could get you demoted to Paducah for the rest of your living days, the mysterious beings who balance the scales of hits and errors have learned to enjoy a nice bat flip just as much as the rest of us. But if they do hate bat flips, then the only thing they hate even more is a bat flip that comes on a routine flyout. So MJ Melendez just might be to blame for this whole thing.

Fifth Inning

Look, this one isn’t Kansas City’s fault. The team was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Adam Frazier is about to lead off the inning with a triple, but first he needs to take a warmup cut and get situated in the batter’s box and — oh. Oh no.

Apparently umpire Chad Fairchild needs to get situated too. The best part is what happens after Fairchild wraps up downstairs. Frazier steps back out of the batter’s box and heaves the world’s biggest sigh. It’s hard to blame him for needing a second to refocus after what he just witnessed.

Later in the inning, Kyle Isbel got hit in the shin by a pitch. Disobeying the rule shouted by every high school baseball player in American history, he leaned over to rub the spot where he got hit. Still, I think that offense pales in comparison to Fairchild’s. I know I feel cursed after watching it.

Sixth Inning

I noticed two things in the sixth. First, it turns out that Adam Frazier has his own hip issues. I don’t know if this is enough to anger the baseball gods. Maybe they’re into this sort of thing. Either way, it is my solemn duty to bring any and all pelvic gyrations to your attention.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not looping the same video over and over. These are different pitches in the same plate appearance, all in the sixth inning. Frazier really needs to keep that pelvis good and limber.

The second thing seemed much more likely to cause a curse. All game long, there were two Royals fans in the fancy seats behind home plate. (This is off topic, but in that section, the snacks that go for Armageddon prices in the rest of the stadium aren’t just free, they’re tossed to you by a vendor who walks around in a full Pirates uniform. Sometimes you’ll see him winding up to throw a water bottle and you’ll think for second that one of the perks of sitting in the fancy seats is being waited on by an actual big leaguer.) I had my eye on that pair the entire time. The fan on the left had some glorious facial hair and a cool vintage hat. (He also kept pouring the free water on his neck to beat the heat, and considering what those water bottles cost in the rest of the stadium, it was the most conspicuous consumption I’ve ever witnessed in my life.) The fan on the right was wearing ear buds the entire game and looking down constantly, either because he was checking his phone or because his left leg just happened to be really interesting.

In the bottom of the sixth, however, the best buddies switched seats. And just to make sure we all knew about it, ear buds guy waved directly at the camera.

Same seats, guys. Same seats! We’re trying to make the playoffs here.

Seventh Inning

Salvador Perez and Aaron Judge are the only current players in baseball who have attained the rank of captain. Judge doesn’t wear a C on his uniform because the Yankee pinstripes are sacrosanct and it would be a crime against nature to alter them in any way (unless it’s to add an enormous Nike swoosh). But look at Perez’s C when he comes up in the seventh. Where did they even find a C that small?

It’s minuscule, and I mean that in the most literal possible sense: It’s a lowercase C. It’s honestly so small that it seems disrespectful. It’s so tiny. Did they just run out and buy it from a Michael’s? It looks like it’s just the copyright symbol for the swoosh. When Jason Varitek captained the Red Sox back in the 2000s, he wore an enormous C. It was actually the same size as the team name emblazoned across his chest.

That thing needed its own parking spot! Don’t tell me nobody in the Kansas City clubhouse was capable of finding a big chunky C for their big captain. They definitely have one, and you know how I know? Because it’s right there on the jersey! Just take that one. Problem solved. Curse broken. You’re welcome, Kansas ity.

Eighth Inning

Fermin singled to lead off the top of the eighth, at which point first base coach Damon Hollins helpfully gave him some tips about the new pitcher on the mound. Before he could do so, however, Hollins needed to consult his notes.

That’s right, Hollins apparently doesn’t use one of those cool little positioning cards that the players get. He just walks out onto the field every inning with several sheets of computer paper folded hot-dog style and flapping around in his back pocket. When the situation calls for it, he pulls them out and searches for the proper page like a best man about to give the world’s longest, sweatiest toast. How is it possible that Hollins has so many notes that it requires multiple pages? Has he never considered folding the pages a second time so that they fit comfortably into his pocket without threatening to fall out? This whole situation is an affront to any number of gods.

Ninth Inning

Look, I came into the ninth inning thinking that I’d round things off with a classic blunder; some egregious, old-school infraction tailor-made to anger the baseball gods. And I got one too. David Bednar walked leadoff batter Maikel Garcia, who promptly stole second and third, and then Isbel, who promptly stole second. The Royals had runners on second and third with no outs, and then they couldn’t manage to scratch out a single run. The next three batters went: strikeout, intentional walk, double play. If only they’d hit the ball the other way or executed a safety squeeze, the baseball gods would have squealed with delight and showered them with championships.

So that should’ve been the end, but before it all went down, I saw something even more egregious. I saw something much more petty and not at all relevant to the game of baseball. But it was also so bizarre and outré that I couldn’t go without mentioning it. Behold, Tommy Pham’s snake-skin belt buckle, complete with a miniature American flag. I had to see it and now you do too.

I don’t know what’s going on here, but I have never seen with my own eyes an object that was more certainly cursed. Still, Pham wore this abomination last night, when the Royals finally failed into a win, so now this accursed accessory might just be team’s lucky charm.