Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have been on non-disciplinary paid leave since July, as Major League Baseball investigated the two men’s involvement in a prop betting scandal. The allegation was that Ortiz had intentionally thrown at least two pitches outside the strike zone after tipping off bettors that he would do so. Armed with this advance knowledge, Ortiz’s confederates had profited in extremely specific prop bet markets.

Clase soon joined Ortiz on the sidelines, though the specifics of his supposed wrongdoing were not made public at the time. Both pitchers spent Cleveland’s terrific stretch run, and its playoff series against Detroit, in limbo.

Well, the other shoe dropped on Sunday, and what a shoe it is. The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York indicted the two pitchers on four counts: wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery, and money laundering conspiracy. The first three counts come with a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment, each. Money laundering conspiracy has a five-year maximum. Ortiz was arrested in Boston on Sunday morning, and his attorney maintained his client’s innocence in advance of a scheduled Monday court appearance. Clase is not in custody as of this writing, but his attorney says he “is innocent of all charges and looks forward to clearing his name in court.” Read the rest of this entry »

Daylen Lile was one of the top rookie performers in the senior circuit this season. The 22-year-old outfielder debuted with Washington Nationals in late May and went on to slash .299/.347/.498 with a 132 wRC+ over 351 plate appearances. Displaying a combination of speed and power, Lile legged out 11 triples and left the yard eight times. A ninth home run on his ledger was an inside-the-parker.

When I talked to him in September, I learned that Lile and Nationals teammate James Wood were doing a lot of drill work together in the batting cage. Left on the cutting room floor from our conversation— the ensuing feature can be found here — was what he told me about the work itself. Like most good hitters, Lile is diligent about his routine.

“Your preparation matters, because what happens there translates to the game,” he said. “Mechanically, I still have the same swing I had [when entering pro ball in 2021], although I have changed a few things. I started getting my foot down early to see pitches longer, and now I’m doing a toe-tap for more rhythm, getting synced with the pitcher.”

And then there is the routine itself. Lile has been doing his “movement-prep stuff,” since coming back from UCL surgery, which cost him the 2022 season. Getting his body loose and keeping it that way throughout a long season is an integral part of his process. As you might expect, the work he does in the batting cage is every bit as important. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy first Saturday of the offseason, everyone. To celebrate the occasion, you get two mailbag columns this week! The first ran on Monday and wrapped up a thrilling World Series. In today’s edition, we’ll move on from the Fall Classic and answer your questions about several teams that finished in last place this season. We’ll also cover small-market teams and some of the structures that are in place to encourage them to spend more on their rosters.

The first question we’ll answer today is about a player we’ve featured before in this column. In fact, some are calling him the Patron Saint of the Mailbag, an honor second only to his status as the worst major league player ever.

But before we continue, I’d like to remind you all that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the start of another offseason. As is customary, now that the World Series has concluded, FanGraphs is releasing our ranking of the top 50 free agents available on the market this winter. A number of writers have helmed this list over the years: first Dave Cameron, then Kiley McDaniel, Craig Edwards, and most recently me. This is now my fifth year curating these rankings, and as always, my real superpower is collaboration. The FanGraphs staff contributed mightily at every step along the way.

Below, I’ve provided contract estimates and rankings of the offseason’s top free agents, along with market-focused commentary for the top 25 players. That could be a sketch of likely suitors, a discussion of how qualifying offers might affect a player’s thinking, or even just statistical analysis dressed up as market analysis for Halloween – I’m a baseball nerd at heart, what can I say? A collection of FanGraphs writers – Davy Andrews (DA), Michael Baumann (MB), James Fegan (JF), Jay Jaffe (JJ), David Laurila (DL), Eric Longenhagen (EL), Kiri Oler (KO), Esteban Rivera (ER), and Dan Szymborski (DS) – have supplied player-focused breakdowns for the entire top 50, designed to provide some context for each player at this particular point in their career. Huge thanks go to Meg Rowley for acting as a sounding board throughout the process, Eric Longenhagen for his extensive contributions to my evaluation of the international players, Jason Martinez and Jon Becker for their market knowledge, and Sean Dolinar and David Appelman for technical assistance.

The players are ranked in the order in which I prefer them. That’s often the same as ranking them in contract order, but not always. In some cases, I prefer a player I expect will get less money over one who stands to make more. I’ll generally make note of that in the accompanying comment, but just to reiterate, this list isn’t exclusively sorted by descending average annual value or anything like that. Read the rest of this entry »

This postseason, FanGraphs is continuing its tradition of writing report cards for the on-field decisions made by playoff managers. Excluding the managers who lost in the best-of-three Wild Card Series, we cover every round of the playoffs for all eight managers. It’s detailed enough that I’ve begun enlisting some help. So far this year, I have graded the efforts of A.J. Hinch, Aaron Boone, Craig Counsell, Rob Thomson, and Dan Wilson. Dan Szymborski scrutinized Pat Murphy’s performance. Yesterday and today, I’m taking a look at John Schneider. The Blue Jays played enough games that we decided to split his report into two. Michael Baumann will follow with a review of Dave Roberts. It takes a village to get the kind of in-depth coverage we aspire to provide you.

Our goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but guys like Trey Yesavage and Addison Barger were also excellent this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. George Springer is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. For instance, I’ve increasingly come to view pitching decisions as a trade-off between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think there’s almost no pitching decision that’s a true no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. I tackled the offensive portion of Schneider’s managing yesterday, so now it’s time for the pitching part of his report card. Let’s get to it, shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

This postseason, FanGraphs is continuing its tradition of writing report cards for the on-field decisions made by playoff managers. Excluding the managers who lost in the best-of-three Wild Card Series, we cover every round of the playoffs for all eight managers. It’s detailed enough that I’ve begun enlisting some help. So far this year, I have graded the efforts of A.J. Hinch, Aaron Boone, Craig Counsell, Rob Thomson, and Dan Wilson. Dan Szymborski scrutinized Pat Murphy’s performance. Today and tomorrow, I’m taking a look at John Schneider. The Blue Jays played enough games that we decided to split his report into two. Michael Baumann will follow with a review of Dave Roberts. It takes a village to get the kind of in-depth coverage we aspire to provide you.

Our goal is to evaluate each manager in terms of process, not results. If you bring in your best pitcher to face their best hitter in a huge spot, that’s a good decision regardless of the outcome. Try a triple steal with the bases loaded only to have the other team make four throwing errors to score three runs? I’m probably going to call that a blunder even though it worked out. Managers do plenty of other things — getting team buy-in for new strategies or unconventional bullpen usage behind closed doors is a skill I find particularly valuable — but as I have no insight into how that’s accomplished or how each manager differs, I can’t exactly assign grades for it.

I’m also purposefully avoiding vague qualitative concerns like “trusting your veterans because they’ve been there before.” Playoff coverage lovingly focuses on clutch plays by proven performers, but guys like Trey Yesavage and Addison Barger were also excellent this October. Forget trusting your veterans; the playoffs are about trusting your best players. George Springer is important because he’s great, not because of the number of playoff series he’s appeared in. There’s nothing inherently good about having been around a long time; when I’m evaluating decisions, “but he’s a veteran” just doesn’t enter my thought process.

I’m always looking for new analytical wrinkles in critiquing managerial decisions. For instance, I’ve increasingly come to view pitching decisions as a trade-off between protecting your best relievers from overexposure and minimizing your starters’ weakest matchups, which means that I’m grading managers on multiple axes in every game. I think there’s almost no pitching decision that’s a true no-brainer these days; there are just too many competing priorities to make anything totally obvious. That means I’m going to be less certain in my evaluation of pitching than of hitting, but I’ll try to make my confidence level clear in each case. Let’s get to it – well, at least, the hitting half of it. Read the rest of this entry »

The champagne and tears have barely dried in the wake of this year’s instant-classic World Series, but election season is already upon us. On Monday, the National Baseball Hall of Fame officially unveiled the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, an eight-man slate covering players who made their greatest impact on the game from 1980 to the present and whose eligibility on the BBWAA ballot has lapsed. For the second year in a row, the Hall stole its own thunder, as an article in the Winter 2025 volume of its bimonthly Memories and Dreams magazine revealed the identities of the eight candidates prior to the official announcement. The mix includes some — but not all — of the controversial characters who have slipped off the writers’ ballot in recent years, including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as a couple surprises. This cycle also marks the first application of a new rule that could shape future elections.

Assembled by the Historical Overview Committee, an 11-person group of senior BBWAA members, the ballot includes Bonds, Clemens, and fellow holdovers Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, as well as newcomers Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela. As with any Hall election, this one requires 75% from the voters to gain entry. In this case, the panel — whose members won’t be revealed until much closer to election time — will consist of Hall of Famers, executives, and media members/historians, each of whom may tab up to three candidates when they meet on Sunday, December 7, at the Winter Meetings in Orlando. Anyone elected will be inducted alongside those elected by the BBWAA (whose own ballot will be released on November 17) on July 26, 2026 in Cooperstown. In the weeks before that, I’ll cover each candidate’s case in depth here at FanGraphs.

This is the fourth ballot since the Hall of Fame reconfigured its Era Committee system into a triennial format in April 2022, after a bumper crop of six honorees was elected by the Early Baseball and Golden Days Era Committees the previous December. The current format splits the pool of potential candidates into two timeframes: those who made their greatest impact on the game before 1980 (Classic Baseball Era), including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black players, and those who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present day (Contemporary Baseball Era). The Contemporary group is further split into two ballots, one for players whose eligibility on BBWAA ballots has lapsed (Fred McGriff was elected in December 2022), and one for managers, executives, and umpires (Jim Leyland was elected in December 2023). Non-players from the Classic timeframe are lumped in with players, which doesn’t guarantee representation on the final ballot. Read the rest of this entry »

Just after Yoshinobu Yamamoto escaped the bases-loaded, one-out jam in the bottom of the ninth inning to send Game 7 of the World Series into extra innings, I received a text message from my dad that said, “Why did he slide?” The “he” was Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was thrown out at home by Miguel Rojas on a bang-bang play for the second out of the inning. The throw momentarily pulled Will Smith off the plate, but the catcher reconnected with the dish just before IKF’s front foot touched it. Sliding slows down the momentum of a baserunner, and my dad was arguing that if IKF hadn’t slid, he would’ve been safe and the Blue Jays would’ve walked-off the Dodgers in Game 7. Instead, Los Angeles won it, 5-4, in 11 innings to become the first back-to-back champions in 25 years.

We have no way of knowing for sure, but after watching the replay about a dozen times, I agree with my dad that Kiner-Falefa would’ve been safe had he remained upright and sprinted through the plate, albeit barely. Heck, a bigger secondary lead might have done it, even with his slide. These are the extremely fine margins with which this most glorious and baffling World Series was decided. For fans of the two teams, I’m sure it was excruciating to watch; to me and all the other neutral observers out there, it was an absolute delight.

We’ll be wrapping up our coverage of the World Series throughout the day here at FanGraphs, including in this mailbag. Before we continue, though, I’d like to remind you all that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a baseball fan — and presumably most people reading this are — Game 7 of the 2025 World Series was like the best buffet you’ve ever been to. There were no hotel pans full of lukewarm highlights sitting atop Sterno cans. This one had dramatic home runs, crazy defensive plays, a series of starting pitcher relief cameos, and even some questionable baserunning for flavor. Even Will Smith’s 11th-inning home run, which was the eventual difference, might have only been the fifth-most exciting moment in one of the best World Series games I’ve seen in my near half-century of existence.

We certainly started off with an entertaining matchup of starting pitchers. For the Dodgers, we got Shohei Ohtani, the player who has defined the 2020s. While Tyler Glasnow’s three-pitch save in Game 6 didn’t disqualify him — he appeared later in this game — Ohtani is tricky to use as a relief option since the Ohtani DH rule only works when he’s starting. On the other side, Max Scherzer got the start for the Blue Jays, and while the future Hall of Famer is nearing the end of his career and is no longer an ace, I wouldn’t dare get between Mad Max and a Game 7.

Ohtani started things off in the first with a liner to center, advancing to second on a Smith grounder after a terrific diving play by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to prevent the Dodgers from getting two on with no one out. Ohtani then advanced to third on a Freddie Freeman fly out, but he was stranded after a Mookie Betts groundout to Andrés Giménez. Read the rest of this entry »

The Fall Classic has traveled near and far, but wherever they are, the Dodgers have relied heavily on Yoshinobu Yamamoto to lead the team to victory, and on Friday night he delivered once again. Following a three-game swing in Los Angeles, the World Series returned to Toronto for Game 6. And though back in their home and native land, the Blue Jays fell to the Dodgers 3-1, meaning Canada’s team will face L.A. in a decisive Game 7 on Saturday night.

The faster we’re fallin’, we’re stoppin’ and stallin’,
We’re runnin’ in circles again.
Just as things were lookin’ up, you said it wasn’t good enough,
But still, we’re tryin’ one more time.

Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman had the first seven batters he faced looking like they might be in over their heads. His splitter was working exactly as intended — presenting as a center-cut fastball, then diving in too deep for the hitter to make contact — and leading to a ton of swing-and-miss. As he worked deeper in the game, Gausman mixed in his slider more, which earned him some quick outs on weak contact. For the most part, he cruised through his six innings and 93 pitches. For the most part. Read the rest of this entry »