Archive for Five Things

Welcome to the last 2026 edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. The regular season is headed to a conclusion, with two division titles and four playoff spots still up for grabs. For me, late September is a great time to catch my breath and watch a little meaningless baseball as a palette cleanser before flipping the switch to the maximum-intensity world of October. So while there are some consequential games this week, this column isn’t about those. It’s about some goofy things I saw in low-stakes matchups, a player I enjoyed watching all season, and some voices that have enriched my baseball-viewing experience over the years. With my customary acknowledgment of Zach Lowe of The Ringer, who popularized the format this column shamelessly copies, let’s get started.

1. Professional Courtesy
Baseball players on opposite teams are competitors, but they’re also workers in the same field. Yes, you’d like to beat the other team, but your counterpart on their squad is one of the people who can most relate to your daily struggles. You might compete against them 10 times a year; the other 355 days, your lives are far more alike than different. Catchers have a particular bond; let people throw projectiles right at you all day, and you’ll naturally gain a lot of respect for other people willing to do the same thing.

When the Brewers and Phillies squared off this week, the stakes were moderate. The Brewers hadn’t clinched the top overall seed yet, though they were headed there. (They did last night, when the Dodgers lost to the Padres.) The Phillies haven’t yet clinched a playoff spot, though again, the writing is on the wall. For the most part, it was a playoff tuneup for both sides. In the top of the ninth on Tuesday, with the Phillies up three and cruising home, William Contreras decided that he might as well burn a challenge:

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the second Five Things of the week. After a bonus recap of Saberseminar, it’s time to get back to what this column is all about: bunts. OK, fine, that’s not entirely true, but trying to bunt for a hit leads to some of the best on-field action, and by the time we hit September, I’m eager for some exciting fielding adventures, whether they end in an out or not. In fact, exciting adventures are pretty much all I’m looking for at the moment. Whether it’s playoff previews, low-stakes barnburners, or maniacally aggressive baserunners, I’m looking for chaos, tension, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat combined in a single play or single game. The past two weeks haven’t disappointed – just so long as you’re willing to extend your definition of action past the usual homers and strikeouts. So buckle up for another five things – after thanking patron saint Zach Lowe of The Ringer for his delightful column idea, which I’ve been faithfully ripping off for four years now.

1. Seeding Clashes
Five Things is generally the domain of silly baseball. The best plays don’t only happen in games between the best teams – really, there are more mid-level teams than great ones, so if anything, this is more of an underdogs column. But while the past few weeks have plenty of that, there have also been some downright amazing battles between teams fighting for the same playoff spot, and I find myself tuning into those games more frequently than anything else recently.

The impetus for this item actually started several weeks ago, when the Dodgers played seven games against the Brewers and Cubs in a two-week span. I was interested in seeing the best teams in the NL measure themselves against each other – and luckily, the league cooperated. The Brewers and Braves themselves squared off in a three-game set just before the Dodgers traveled to Atlanta. That set up a round robin of sorts between the NL’s best – the Brewers went 5-2, the Dodgers went 1-6, and the Braves were 4-2. Read the rest of this entry »

Once a year, the baseball statistics world converges on Chicago for a weekend of presentations, discussions, networking, and a frankly shocking number of job interviews. I’m talking about Saberseminar, if you’re not familiar. The conference has long been a source of baseball learning, where a mixture of leading analysts and up-and-coming students present their latest research. Every time I go, I leave with my head overflowing with new avenues of study, new things I’m curious about, and a bunch of cool knowledge that I won’t expand on but am nevertheless happy to have learned. I went two weeks ago, and I have a notebook full of ideas to investigate now. I can’t tell you everything that I learned – if you want that, you’ll just have to go to Saberseminar yourself. But there were five talks in particular that I loved. They weren’t the only good presentations by any means. But I have a column for highlighting five things, and it felt only appropriate to highlight five of my favorites from the weekend.

1. Injury Research by Scott Powers et al
The first presentation of the weekend is usually a good one, and this year didn’t disappoint. Scott Powers is a professor at Rice University who has a long history of good presentations at analytical conferences. His past research runs the gamut from batted-ball modeling to volleyball serve optimization. This year, his presentation focused on injury prevention. Powers, Rose Graves, Marina Vannucci, James Buffi, Daniel Barrueco, John D’Angelo, and Amanda K. Glazer set out to come up with some realistic injury guidance based on pitch characteristics and biomechanical data from the major leagues. As the name of the talk implies, they took a central idea into their work: Don’t pitch an injury prevention plan that boils down to “stop throwing so dang hard.”

The first part of their work focused on what they could glean from Statcast data. They identified a number of characteristics that are correlated with increased likelihood of elbow injury. Most of those won’t surprise you: fastball velocity, fastball break, and slider usage were the top culprits. Interestingly, they also included some measures of effort – the ratio between average and 90th-percentile fastball velo, for example – and found no linkage there. That’s a great proof of concept for the idea, but unfortunately it doesn’t really present a workable plan for pitching coaches. “Hey, just, uh, make your fastball slower and give it less movement.” As the title of the pitch implies, that’s no good, so they went deeper by using biomechanical data to look for more granular data. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I took a two month hiatus from writing this column because we had a heavy summer of evaluating baseball, and as it turns out, it’s tough to both analyze baseball and watch it entirely out of a sense of whimsy. But now the tables have turned. There are no more studies to do on prospect valuation. The trade values have been tabulated. The deadline has passed. The playoffs are still a month away. There’s not much to do other than watch baseball and enjoy, whether it’s playoff races, dominant performances, exciting debuts, or just the beauty of a well-played game on a warm summer evening. So kick back, relax, and join me in thanking Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the article format that I’ve been riffing on for the past four years.

1. Rangy Infielders
During the peak of the infield shift, 5-3 double plays had a brief heyday. With three defenders on the right side of the infield against most lefty batters, the third baseman played a de facto shortstop for large portions of most games. When those lefties grounded out to short with runners on, third basemen somewhat frequently fielded the ball, stepped on second, and threw to first to complete the play. But with two infielders now required to be on each side of second base, it wouldn’t make any sense for a third baseman to get the ball and then sprint past the shortstop to tag the base and make the relay throw.

Or would it? Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week in Baseball. In keeping with the increasingly lenient definition of “this week” that I’ve been using of late, we’ve got stuff from all throughout May in this column. May is a great time to watch baseball. (It’s always a great time to watch baseball, but May is particularly good.) The weather is heating up. Ballparks are swelling with the start of summer crowds. Tarps are coming off. So please join me on a trip through the league, from fun teams to watch to nifty little plays. And as always, thanks to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the inspiration.

1. The Go-Go Nats
Nationals fans have endured seven years in the wilderness since the team’s 2019 title. Washington’s season-high win total in that span was 71 (2023 and 2024). This year’s team is finally playing around .500 ball, though our projections think the Nats will end up right around that 71-win high-water mark again. (We have them down for 74 at the moment.) But while the winning hasn’t quite come back yet, the fun has.

This year, the Nationals are dominating on offense. They’re leading the majors in scoring by a mile, averaging an enormous 5.49 runs per game. They’ve hit the most doubles in baseball – in fact, they have the most extra-base hits in baseball. They’re top 10 in on-base percentage, top five in slugging, and top five in stolen bases. They’re first in overall baserunning value. They’re third in BaseRuns-projected scoring. This isn’t smoke and mirrors. 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 »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. This column isn’t running every week this year, which means the title is more of a suggestion than a rule. There are some plays from last week, some plays from this week, and future editions will probably break that convention even a little more. I can’t imagine that’s all that big of a deal. After all, “I Liked” is a bigger part of why I enjoy writing this series than “This Week.” So sit back, relax, and check out some of the most delightful baseball happenings of the second half of April. And of course, thanks again to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, the progenitor of the “X Things I Liked This Week” format and my inspiration for this column.

1. Inevitability
If you tune into a baseball broadcast with a runner on third base and less than two outs, you’re liable to hear a discussion of an “undefendable play.” That play is some variation on a safety squeeze: The batter bunts, the runner gets down the line as far as he can safely and waits to see where the bunt is headed before committing, and the defense has very little hope of making a tag play in time. Batters have attempted 24 of these bunts in 2026, and defenders have only retired the lead runner four times. Safety squeezes were equally hard to stop in 2025, this hilarious double play notwithstanding. But maybe they’re even better than those success rates would imply. Maybe there’s some kind of supernatural force that makes safety squeezes work. How else do you explain this nonsense?

Taylor Walls is the most prolific safety squeeze bunter in baseball, and he tried it in extras against the Pirates last week:

Read the rest of this entry »

Another week, another delightful slate of games, which can only mean one thing: It’s time for another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. One of my favorite parts of the early season is rediscovering the small pleasures of watching baseball that I’ve forgotten over the winter. I don’t mean watching Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge play. That’s obviously very enjoyable, but it’s not something I forget about in the offseason. But the feel of the game, the look on players’ faces when something unexpected happens, the pure happiness I get from seeing a bunch of grown-ups throw a ball around for a job? I only have that experience when the games are on, and the feeling is strongest after a prolonged absence. So no stars today, just stuff I watched that gave me a happy (or, in one case, angry) feeling. As always, a shout out to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, who popularized this article format in his seminal basketball column. And a programming note: Five Things won’t be appearing every week this season, to help balance out my workload and allow me to work on other projects here at the site. I’ll likely be off next week – unless the baseball I watch this weekend is just too enjoyable not to write about.

1. Late-Night Hijinks
I associate West Coast games with wackiness. It’s likely because I grew up out East, and was usually halfway asleep and fully loopy when I turned on late-night baseball (or late-night any sport, really; I have fond memories of silly Pac 10 football games at 1 a.m.). But there’s something thrilling about the last game of the day’s slate going into extra innings, whether you live in Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon. Last week, the Padres and Rockies did their best to deliver. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to a new season of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. After a slow, veteran-who-signed-late-this-spring style warmup to the year, it’s time for another dive into the little details that catch my eye each week. It’s the perfect time of year for it. Beautiful weather, early-season optimism, overheard conversations about who should bat third and who’s a bum – it all fuses together to make this one of my favorite parts of the baseball calendar. And even though the WBC whetted my appetite for the spectacular somewhat, there’s really no replacing major league games for the sheer variety of entertainment. I’m sure that Zach Lowe of The Ringer, whose old NBA column format I’ve borrowed, would say the same thing about the basketball regular season. Let’s talk baseball.

1. Ricochets
If you share my baseball consumption habits, it might seem like every weekday offers a Royals game, a Guardians game, or a Royals-Guardians game. And I love it! I’ll take any excuse to watch Maikel Garcia continue his ascent from contact hitter to do-it-all superstar, a kind of modern-day José Ramírez. And I get to watch the actual José Ramírez too? And Bobby Witt Jr.? And Steven Kwan, Vinnie Pasquantino, Bo Naylor, and old favorite Michael Wacha? Both of these teams are sneaky fun, and their series this week didn’t disappoint. Witt might be having a slow start on offense, but he’s still a defensive genius:

Lots of shortstops – pretty much every other shortstop, even – would get only one out, somewhere, on that play. But two?! Ludicrous. When Garcia’s lunging attempt caromed toward Witt, he turned from interested observer to protagonist so smoothly that it looked like he was planning on doing it the whole time. It started with his feet. Instead of charging the ricochet, Witt timed his steps to hop to a stop and get his body in as good a throwing position as he could:

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. That title is quite a mouthful. Every time I submit it, our helpful back end interface informs me that it is “far too long.” You’re not wrong, WordPress. But I lifted the title and the inspiration for this column from Zach Lowe’s basketball feature of the same name, and every time I consider removing the parenthetical part of it, I remember that the frustrations and failures of the game are part of what makes baseball so compelling. If you never disliked anything about sports, they wouldn’t be so fun to follow. So while every item this week involves something I liked, they also all contain an element of something I didn’t care for. Missed plays, bobbled balls, artificially abbreviated outings, below-average defensive units, lengthy injury recoveries – there are things to dislike in each of these. They all brought me extreme joy anyway, though. Let’s get going.

1. Relatable Frustration
Mike Yastrzemski has been everything the Royals could have hoped for since he joined the team at the trade deadline. He leads off against righties, gets platooned against lefties, and plays his habitual right field. He’s been the team’s second-best hitter behind Bobby Witt Jr., a huge boon as they chase slim playoff odds. Also, when he goofs something up, his reactions are very relatable:

You can see what happened there right away. Yaz’s first step was in, but the ball was actually over his head, and tailing towards the foul line so strongly that he couldn’t reach it. Sure, it was only his second start of the year in left field. Sure, he hasn’t played left for more than a handful of games since 2019. And sure, the ball had plenty of slice on it. But he’d probably tell you the same thing you’re thinking: Major league outfielders, particularly solid ones like Yastrzemski, should make that play. Read the rest of this entry »