In his first three seasons, Patrick Bailey carved a niche as one of the game’s top defensive catchers, dominating the Statcast defensive leaderboards and winning two Gold Gloves. The development of his offense has lagged, however, and with the Giants struggling to score runs and sporting one of the majors’ worst records, they’ve decide they can live without Bailey’s glovework. On Saturday, they traded the 27-year-old backstop to the Guardians for 23-year-old lefty pitching prospect Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and a Competitive Balance pick in the upcoming draft.

This is the second season in a row that president of baseball operations Buster Posey has shaken up San Francisco’s roster with an early-season trade; last year, it was the mid-June acquisition of slugger Rafael Devers in a blockbuster with Boston. You don’t have to squint too hard to accept that both trades were aimed at upgrading moribund offenses, but when the Giants dealt for Devers, they were 11 games above .500 (41-30), one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West. They felt they’d landed the offensive cornerstone that had eluded them after unsuccessful pursuits of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, a player who could help them return to the postseason for the first time since 2021. This time around, they entered the day of the trade 15-23, last in the division, and the move appears far more tilted toward the future, as Wilkinson has just gotten his feet wet in Double-A and the draft pick won’t make an immediate impact.

If this trade had occurred just prior to the deadline (August 3 this year), it might have been characterized as a white flag, part of a larger selloff. To these eyes, it’s a shakeup that at worst smacks of panic and at best places a lot of faith that Posey — a likely Hall of Fame catcher who has yet to show similar prowess as an executive — has found a diamond or two in the rough with his two recent catching acquisitions: Jesus Rodriguez, who came from the Yankees in last year’s Camilo Doval trade, and Daniel Susac, who was flipped by the Twins in December after being plucked from the A’s as a Rule 5 pick. Both are 24 years old and have fewer than 10 games of major league experience, with Susac, who turns 25 on May 14, currently on a rehab assignment after being sidelined by neuritis in his right elbow. Eric Haase, a 33-year-old backstop who hit his way out of a starting job in Detroit in 2023, started in Saturday’s 13-3 drubbing by the Pirates — San Francisco’s ninth loss in 11 games — while Rodriguez started Sunday’s 7-6 win, which lifted the team’s record to 16-24, still third worst in the NL. Read the rest of this entry »

Kai-Wei Teng had a limited repertoire when he signed with the Minnesota Twins out of Taiwan in 2017. The right-hander from Taichung possessed just a fastball and a curveball. A lot has changed since that time. Now 27 years old and pitching for the Houston Astros, Teng attacks hitters with a five-pitch mix that includes a sweeper that is not only hard to hit, it is no fun to be on the receiving end of in catch-play.

“It’s insanely good,” Spencer Arrighetti told me last weekend at Fenway Park. “I throw a sweeper. Lance [McCullers] throws a sweeper. We have a couple of other guys who toy around with it. But Teng’s is incredible. Truly. I played catch with him, and it looks like a fastball for 48 feet, then takes a 90-degree left turn. Not all sweepers are created equal. Some of them are a little loopier and bigger, but his is 85 mph. I mean, it’s gross. It really is a great pitch.”

The numbers back that up. Teng has relied on his most-used offering 36.3% of the time this season to the tune of a .118 BAA, a .118 SLG, and a 27.9% whiff rate. His other numbers are impressive, as well. Over 14 appearances, Teng has a 2.35 ERA, a 3.83 FIP, and a 24.7% strikeout rate over 23 innings.

I asked Teng for the story behind his best weapon. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my biggest regrets in the years I’ve been covering baseball is that I never got John Sterling’s list. You see, in addition to our mutual love of baseball, Sterling shared my appreciation for film noir. I don’t remember how it came up, but I learned of Sterling’s noir kick in the summer of 2023, when Yankees beat writer Chris Kirschner, of The Athletic, suggested I talk to the longtime Yankees radio broadcaster about it. I had never met Sterling before, but the next day in the Yankee Stadium press box dining room, I introduced myself. He was so excited to know that this 27-year-old kid also loved noir, and he immediately asked me what my favorites were. Right away, I rattled off In a Lonely Place, Out of the Past, and Double Indemnity, which looking back on it, must have made me seem like a noir novice, as if I said my three favorite Springsteen songs were “Born to Run,” “Born in the USA,” and “Dancing in the Dark.” But Sterling didn’t think anything of it. Or if he did, he didn’t show it. Instead, his face lit up, and in his baritone voice, he beamed about Bogart and Mitchum and MacMurray. We chatted for a few minutes before I asked him for his recommendations. He had to get back to the booth — it was almost game time — but he told me to come find him next homestand and he’d make a list for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t see him for another month or so, and when I did, I didn’t ask him for the list. We didn’t really know each other, and I didn’t want to bother him with something so trivial. He retired early the next season.

Growing up a Yankees fan from the Hudson Valley, I listened to Sterling for most of my life. His voice is woven into the fabric of my baseball fandom. It’s not a stretch to say that all those years spent listening to him on the radio contributed to my becoming a baseball writer. And yet, when I saw the news that Sterling had died on Monday at age 87, the first thing I thought about was the brief time we spent talking about film noir in front of the press box coffee machine that summer day in 2023. I never got the list, but I did get a wonderful memory. I’ll cherish it forever.

There’s no natural transition to the mailbag from there, so let’s just get to it. This week, we’ll be answering your questions about Austin Hedges’ unexpected hot start at the plate, the most efficient pitchers on a per-pitch basis, teams that register a .500 OBP in a game, and the largest percentage of career stolen bases coming in the shortest span of time. 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 »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. Actually, this is a slightly different column: Five Nico Hoerner Throws From Shallow Right Field I’ve Liked This Year Plus Assorted Veteran Cubs Defenders. That’s a little bit less catchy, though, and it’s at least vaguely Five Things formatted, so I’m counting it. Does “plays a single second baseman has made in one area of the field in one month of play” sound like too narrow a topic for not just one article, but five vignettes? It sure does – until you watch Hoerner play. When I voted for him in the Fielding Bible Awards last year, I wrote this: “I actually spent a while reviewing his defense on video. That wasn’t because I seriously considered anyone else for the top spot; it’s just that satisfying to watch him play.” Today, you can be a video reviewer alongside me. Try not to spit out your drink. And of course, what introduction could be complete without credit to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, the inspiration for this column?

1. Calmness Under Pressure
When you’re on the baseball diamond, things won’t always go right. At the big league level, the margins are razor thin. The other guy lives in a big house, too. Half a second late, and there’s no chance for an out. Throw to the wrong base? That’s often going to cost you. But the Chicago infield is packed to the gills with defenders who can tilt the playing field with guile, clawing that razor-thin margin back. A freakishly high chopper, off the bat of Joey Wiemer, gave baserunner Andrés Chaparro a good opportunity to take an extra base on an infield single. Hoerner probably shouldn’t have even attempted to throw him out, but he went for it:

Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — “He brought that New York theater to the ballpark,” said Aaron Judge about John Sterling before Monday’s game, offering a perfect summation of the approach of the longtime Yankees broadcaster, who died earlier that day at the age of 87 in Englewood, New Jersey. Dressed in a suit and tie even though listeners couldn’t see him, prone to dropping a reference to a midcentury Broadway musical while celebrating a Yankees home run, and delivering his lines with a booming baritone capable of reaching the cheap seats, Sterling brought a unique and dramatic flair to the job.

His grandiloquent style could be polarizing, his puns agonizing. His personalized calls for each Yankee player’s home runs — from “Bernie goes boom! Bern, baby, Bern!” for Bernie Williams to “Robbie Cano, don’t ya know?” for Robinson Canó to “He sends a Tex message!” for Mark Teixeira — could sound a bit corny at times, his stentorian elongation of the word “the,” as in his oft-imitated “Thuuuuuuuuh Yankees win!” a hammy flourish.

When you root for a team, though, calls like Sterling’s punctuate the high points of fandom and the thrill of victory. Sterling never failed to convey the excitement of the ballpark with his triumphant blasts, but he easily downshifted into a calmer cadence with his partners, most notably Michael Kay and Suzyn Waldman, during more mundane moments. Such conversations are the comforting stuff of summers past, and such enduring presences in the booth offer us yardsticks by which we can measure our lives. Read the rest of this entry »

To start things off, here’s a riddle for you. Which of these two batting lines would you prefer?

They’re similar, no doubt. I’m pretty sure you’d pick Batter B, though. He walks a lot more and hits more line drives. He also hits the ball hard more frequently while swinging and missing less frequently. Batter A is Nick Kurtz’s spectacular 2025 season (.290/.383/.619, 170 wRC+). Batter B? Nick Kurtz’s slow start to 2026 (.244/.412/.412, 130 wRC+). Huh?

Kurtz’s early-season power outage is hard to understand. His process statistics all look phenomenal. His xwOBA is up year over year. He’s already posted a higher maximum exit velocity, and his average and 90th-percentile exit velocities are both in the top five in baseball. But they don’t play the game in a Statcast spreadsheet, and Kurtz’s results have dipped meaningfully. In 2025, he hit a homer every 13 plate appearances. This year, that number is above 30. His ISO is down from .329 to .168. Read the rest of this entry »

There are no “good” injuries in baseball. Losing a player to the IL is never a fun time. But there’s still a relative hierarchy – not every injury is an equally big bummer. On Monday, we got one of those big bummers. The Tigers placed Tarik Skubal, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young winner, on the injured list. He’s slated to undergo surgery to remove loose bodies in his pitching elbow, as Evan Woodbery of MLive first reported.

Skubal had dealt with occasional pains in his arm throughout the season, as The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen reported. In his start last Wednesday, Skubal grimaced and grabbed his elbow in the seventh inning, sending a bevy of concerned Tigers staffers to the mound. He waved them off and struck out the side, but when his arm didn’t recover as much as expected in the aftermath of that start, the team had imaging done, revealing the need for surgery. This injury could alter the balance of power in the AL Central this year. More than that, it could change the trajectory of Skubal’s career. So let’s walk through the implications for the team, league, and player as we try to make sense of this unfortunate bit of news. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago Cubs. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

When David Morgan was profiled in last year’s rankings of the San Diego Padres’ top prospects, it was pointed out that the 26-year-old right-hander had joined the organization as a non-drafted free agent in 2022. Moreover, he’d barely taken the mound. A two-way player at Hope International University — an NAIA school in Fullerton, California — Morgan had thrown just nine-and-a-third innings. At the time he signed, he was playing for the Portland Pickles in the summer collegiate West Coast League (for which Rob Neyer is the commissioner).

Morgan’s backstory sets him apart him from his MLB brethren, but what about from a pitch-specific standpoint? Are there any differentiating characteristics?

“My ability to pick stuff up and kind of run with it is probably the most unique thing about me,” said Morgan, who made his big-league debut last May and has since logged a 3.41 ERA and a 4.15 FIP over 52 appearances comprising 60-and-two-thirds frames. “Last year, when I had to throw a sinker, it wasn’t really a learning process. It was in-between innings. I came into the dugout, grabbed a new grip, and threw it the next inning.”

The outing, his sixth in the majors, came on June 10 with the Padres holding a commanding late-inning lead against the Los Angeles Dodgers. When Morgan returned to the dugout after working the eighth, pitching coach Ruben Niebla pulled him aside and asked if he’d ever thrown a sinker. The answer was yes and no. Morgan had toyed around with one, but that was about it.

With the game not in doubt — San Diego led 11-1 — Niebla “gave [him] a grip and said to go out and throw it next inning.” Morgan did, the pitch “danced around a little bit,” and the rest is history. By season’s end, he’d thrown his sinker at a 21.5% clip, and this year the usage is up to 34.7%. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t pay too much attention to the standings in April. I look at them, of course, but that’s more a matter of routine than a desire to learn something substantial. It’s hard for teams to pull ahead of the pack this early in the season, and I’d rather not read too much into the fact that, say, the banged-up Blue Jays are a few games below .500, or that none of the five teams in the NL Central has a losing record. It takes time for these things to sort themselves out.

And yet, upon checking the standings Friday morning, I found myself pondering the significance of what I saw: specifically, that only three teams in the American League had a winning record. After a dizzying 20 minutes of digging, I lifted my head from my laptop in a daze, wondering how the heck I ended up staring at Baseball Reference’s playoff odds for the 14-18 White Sox. I think seeing the number 16.1% is what snapped me out of my stupor. (For what it’s worth, our Playoff Odds gave the South Siders a 2.2% chance to make the postseason, double their odds on Opening Day.) Anyway, about those three AL clubs above .500, the Yankees (20-11) were expected to be one of the best teams in baseball, so their place atop the standings wasn’t surprising, but the strong starts of the Rays (18-12) and Athletics (17-14) caught me a bit off guard. I thought Tampa Bay was destined for last place when the season began, and our Playoff Odds agreed, projecting the team to finish with 79.7 wins and giving it a 28.9% shot to reach the postseason. Entering May, the Rays have only added about two wins to their median projection (81.9), but they now have a 45.6% chance of making the playoffs. Meanwhile, I believed the A’s would be better this year, but better meant maybe a third-place finish in the AL West and an outside shot to snag the final AL Wild Card spot. Still, I figured they were more likely still a year or two away from true contention. Our preseason Playoff Odds tabbed them for 78 wins and a 21.4% shot at the playoffs. Now, they’re up to a projected 81.3 wins and 43.1% odds. I still don’t think either team will play postseason baseball this year; according to both their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records, the Rays have played more like a .500 team than one that’s on pace to win 97 games, while the A’s simply don’t have enough pitching. Remember, it’s only the start of May. There’s so much more baseball still to be played.

OK, that’s enough about the Rays and A’s in this week’s mailbag. Today, we’ll be answering your questions about how good Shohei Ohtani would be at basketball, whether James Wood is one of the best lefty batters ever at hitting the ball the other way, which batter has the most hits against a pitcher without recording an out, and what would happen if ZiPS forgot about 2020. But before we get to all of that, 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 »