The book on Munetaka Murakami was pretty straightforward when he hit the market this winter. Phenomenal cosmic power – itty bitty contact rate. While acknowledging recent injuries, our writeup noted his contact rates against good velocity (63%) and secondary pitches (50%) as red flags in his profile. And these weren’t little red flags, either. As Eric and James put it, “…if Murakami is only ever the quality of contact hitter we’ve seen the last three years, with no changes or improvements, he basically can’t be a good MLB hitter.”

Through a month of play, Murakami has been a very good MLB hitter, with a 153 wRC+ driven by a 21.5% walk rate and eight homers. But he’s struggled with contact, and that’s putting it mildly. He’s striking out a third of the time so far, with the fourth-lowest contact rate in baseball through Sunday’s action. So what can we say about that? One answer is that it’s too soon to say – either his contact rate will go up or his production will go down. But that’s pretty unsatisfying. To be fair, it’s probably right, but that doesn’t make it satisfying. So let’s break his game down more granularly to see where the whiffs are coming from, where the power is coming from, and how the two are related.

We’ll start with the “can’t hit secondaries” part of the scouting report. In the early going, that has been abundantly clear. Sixty-six batters have swung at 25 or more sliders this season. Murakami’s 59.3% whiff rate is the third highest, behind Max Muncy The Younger and James Wood. If you broaden that out to all secondaries, 201 batters have offered at 50 or more secondary pitches this year. Murakami’s 53.3% whiff rate is the third highest of that group, behind only Matt Wallner and Daniel Schneemann. Read the rest of this entry »

“I thought our story was epic, you know. You and me. Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined and blood shed. Epic.”

Over the last decade or two, internet meme-speak has watered down the word epic to a synonym of awesome, but with an exaggerated grandeur not quite captured by merely saying, “That’s awesome!” Because awesome itself has been watered down over the years, and no longer really implies something awe-inspiring, but instead something more akin to “cool.” And now, due to the fleeting nature of internet trends, the word epic is now outdated meme-speak at that, only used by cringe olds, too self-obsessed to notice that no one talks like that anymore.

But near the end of the second season of Veronica Mars, when Logan Echolls (quoted above) bemoans the way his relationship with Veronica has seemingly fizzled out, he’s using the more traditional, literary definition of epic (a little less Homer Simpson and a little more Homer’s The Iliad). Epic poems are rhythmic, lyrical narratives, known for their vast length and fantastical foes. Veronica immediately pushes back against Logan’s romanticized notion of epic love. Epic should not be an aspirational modifier for one’s love story. In general, epic narratives are pretty unpleasant for everyone with direct involvement, but they make for great television. And baseball games.

Late Saturday afternoon, the University of Northern Colorado Bears earned a walk-off win against the University of St. Thomas Tommies in a 21-inning epic at Koch Diamond in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was the longest game in Summit League history and the eighth-longest game by innings in Division I history.

But the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed a strange detail in the game’s description, aside from the general oddity of its going 21 innings. To understand how the Bears were able to win in a walk-off on the Tommies’ home field, we have to go all the way back to March, when the first bad omen befell the season series between these two teams. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re excited to announce that the latest addition to the FanGraphs Lab is a baseball simulator:

You can click on any of the day’s games to pre-fill the rosters, or build your own using current players. The simulator will then simulate a game 10,000 times. Read the rest of this entry »

Arjun Nimmala has a high ceiling that he is still far away from reaching. No. 2 on our Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list, and No. 48 on our Top 100, the 20-year-old shortstop is presently slashing .163/.308/.372 with two home runs and a 94 wRC+ in 52 plate appearances with High-A Vancouver. Last season, he left the yard 13 times while putting up a 92 wRC+ over a full course of games at the same affiliate. But while the production hasn’t been anything to write home about, the potential is clearly there. As Brendan Gawlowski explained in his scouting profile, “We really like the athlete and tools here, and we’re betting the results will follow in time.”

Nimmala’s right-handed stroke projects to produce plus power once he fully matures, and I asked him about it during spring training

“It’s a swing that’s built to do damage,” replied Nimmala, whom the Blue Jays drafted 20th overall in 2023 out of Dover, Florida’s Strawberry Crest High School. “I pride myself in taking good swings. When things are going well, I have a really good idea of the zone and am doing damage to all parts of the field.”

Asked to elaborate, Nimmala said he considers his bat path a plus — “I think it’s been good since high school” — adding that his adjustments since reaching pro ball have mostly been about putting himself in better launch positions. He further explained that he has tweaked his posture and how he lands.

As for reports saying that his swing is a little on the long side, but also quick, he agrees — but only to a point. Read the rest of this entry »

What-ifs are a central part of being a baseball fan. We love to consider how differently things might’ve turned out if a star player hadn’t gotten hurt, or if a team had signed one free agent instead of another. Some what-ifs are the stuff of legend, like the fabled night in the late 1940s when, during a drunken dinner with Tom Yawkey at Toots Shor’s Midtown Manhattan joint, Yankees owner Dan Topping nearly traded Joe DiMaggio to the Red Sox for Ted Williams. Others aren’t revealed until decades later, like when Barry Bonds said on the Opening Night Netflix broadcast last month that he would’ve played for the Yankees instead of the Giants if George Steinbrenner hadn’t given him a take-it-or-leave-it offer.

We all have our own personal picks, too. Here are a few of mine: What if the New York City newspapers hadn’t gone on strike in 1978? What if Eric Gregg hadn’t been the home plate umpire for Livan Hernandez’s start in Game 5 of the 1997 NLCS? What if Dottie Hinson hadn’t dropped the ball, or Jimmy Dugan had just laid off the booze? Some of the most significant what-ifs could’ve had a massive impact on the world beyond baseball. What if the Black Sox hadn’t thrown the 1919 World Series? What if Curt Flood hadn’t challenged the reserve clause? What if George W. Bush had been named commissioner of baseball?

We won’t be examining any of the above what-ifs in this week’s mailbag, but three of the four questions we’re answering below are rooted in an alternate reality, one in which Mookie Betts was always a shortstop, Ford Frick didn’t run Bill Veeck out of baseball, and a starting pitcher was exactly league average at everything except throwing strikes. The lone non-hypothetical question, which is where we’ll begin, looks at whether teams have more success when they hit a grand slam than when they score at least four runs without one. But first, I’d like to remind you 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 »

On Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers signed rookie shortstop Kevin McGonigle to an eight-year, $150 million contract extension, keeping him under team control through 2034. When McGonigle was going through the draft process, quite a few observers — including me — saw a heady, left-handed-hitting second baseman with average size but a polished, punchy bat, noted that he is from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and thought, “Maybe he’ll be the next Chase Utley.”

As big as the hype around McGonigle has become, that’s still a lofty comp. Utley played 16 years in the majors, made six All-Star teams, produced 61.5 WAR (including five straight seven-win seasons), and appeared in three World Series, winning one. If McGonigle ends up doing all that, I think everyone walks away happy. But after just 17 major league games, McGonigle guaranteed that he would out-earn his childhood hero, who pocketed a mere $125.6 million across his decorated career. Read the rest of this entry »

First things first, I need you to divorce yourself from the notion of marrying strictly for love. Because that’s not how it worked for Evelyn Hugo.

Oh wait. That’s right, some of you probably don’t know who Evelyn Hugo is. Imagine Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth, and Ava Gardener all rolled into one, and now, in her twilight years, she’s sitting for a longform, tell-all interview spanning her entire career — every marriage, every movie, every divorce. That’s the premise of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

None of Hugo’s marriages are fairytale romances. For her, they entail more practical considerations. Sometimes love is a factor, but it’s never the sole focus, and rarely the primary concern. Nevertheless, each marriage plays a distinct role in Hugo’s story, in the creation of her final, self-actualized form. Read the rest of this entry »

Konnor Griffin isn’t the only rookie infielder to land a nine-figure extension within his first few weeks in the majors. On Wednesday, the Tigers reached an agreement with Kevin McGonigle — who made the jump from Double-A into Detroit’s Opening Day lineup and has been the team’s top hitter thus far — on an eight-year, $150 million extension for the 2027–34 seasons. The contract slightly surpasses the value of Griffin’s deal, making it the largest guarantee to a player with fewer than 100 days of major league service time, even before its other bells and whistles are considered.

According to MLB.com, McGonigle will receive a signing bonus of $14 million, $8 million of which is payable within 30 days and the rest in 2028. He’ll then earn $1 million next season, $7 million in 2028 (when he would have qualified for Super-Two status), $16 million in ’29, $21 million in ’30, $22 million in ’31, and then $23 million annually from ’32–34, which would have been his first three years of free-agent eligibility. Escalator clauses can increase the values of the deal by an additional $10 million, with higher salaries for those last three seasons of $25 million (2032), $26 million (2033), and $28 million (2034).

Those escalators are based on MVP voting and other honors, and can be triggered starting this season, per ESPN. McGonigle could get boosts of $2 million for winning an MVP award, $1 million for finishing second through fifth in MVP voting, and $500,000 for finishing sixth through 10th; he’ll also get $500,000 for making the All-MLB first or second team, $250,000 for making an All-Star team, and $250,000 for winning a Silver Slugger award. His contract has no options or opt-out clauses, but additionally includes a $5 million assignment bonus for every time he’s traded to another organization under the life of the contract. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering the 2023 season, Taj Bradley was the no. 36 prospect in baseball, a 22-year-old ace who overmatched his opponents to such a degree that he forced himself to the majors for the back half of the year.

In 2025, Taj Bradley was traded straight up for Griffin Jax, a 31-year-old reliever who has accrued exactly zero wins above replacement for the Rays since that trade.

In 2026, Taj Bradley has been one of the best pitchers in the major leagues.

That’s some roller coaster. And while my first instinct is to take Bradley’s first four starts with a giant grain of salt, this isn’t your average “random dude has good stretch” story. Bradley truly is one of the most dynamic pitchers in the world. He’s electric on the mound. He wasn’t a 55-FV prospect by accident. So let’s take a look at what he’s changed, what he hasn’t changed, and whether this recent run of dominance looks like the portent of a new skill level or just a blip on the graph. Read the rest of this entry »

Davey Lopes was my first favorite ballplayer. In retrospect, I’m not sure how my eight-year-old self settled upon Lopes in a star-laden lineup featuring power hitters Dusty Baker, Ron Cey, Steve Garvey, and Reggie Smith, who the year before (1977) had become the first quartet of teammates to homer 30 times apiece in a season. I have a much better grasp of how Bill James helped my teenage self appreciate Lopes for his combination of high on-base and stolen base rates with mid-range power, but James wasn’t communicating those ideas via mass-market paperbacks circa 1978. Perhaps it was Lopes’ position atop the lineup I memorized while learning to decode box scores (my theory) or the Topps baseball card set that began my collection. Maybe it was simply his instantly recognizable, bushy mustache (my friends’ theory), but one way or another, even before later heroes such as Fernando Valenzuela and Jim Bouton, Lopes was my guy.

The news that Lopes passed away on April 8 at age 80 due to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases — a brutal double bill — reached me while I was traveling in Austria with my own 84-year-old parents and additional family as we tracked down the Vienna addresses of my long-deceased paternal grandparents. I had no shortage of thoughts regarding mortality, and yet the hits kept coming. Lopes wasn’t even the most recent former All-Star-second-baseman-turned-manager to pass away, as Phil Garner, his National League rival and then predecessor in managing the Brewers, died of pancreatic cancer on April 11. So it goes.

Though he didn’t debut until well past his 27th birthday, Lopes spent 16 seasons in the majors (1972-87), the first 10 with the Dodgers, whom he helped to four pennants and a championship while making four All-Star teams, winning a Gold Glove, and becoming team captain. From 1973–81, he manned the keystone in the longest running infield in major league history, along with Garvey at first base, Cey at third, and Bill Russell at shortstop — a unit that formed the foundation of those pennant-winning teams under managers Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda. “He was the catalyst of the engine. It was 700 horsepower with the four of us, and the equation was his ability to get on base,” Garvey told CBS LA in the wake of Lopes’ death. Read the rest of this entry »