The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Daniel Murphy was not a home run hitter. Over the course of a 12-year major league career that was interrupted by knee injuries, he reached double digits in just seven seasons, topping 20 homers just twice. Like Howie Kendrick — another Jacksonville-born second baseman debuting on this Hall of Fame ballot, one who even played on the same team as Murphy in 2017–18 — the lefty-swinging, righty-throwing Murphy was known for his exceptional bat-to-ball ability. And like Kendrick, he went on a memorable, power-driven October run and won NLCS MVP honors. In 2015, he set a record by homering in six straight postseason games, carrying the Mets to their first pennant in 15 years. While it didn’t culminate in a championship, it earned him an indelible spot in postseason history; without that run, he probably wouldn’t even be on this ballot.

…

Daniel Thomas Murphy was born on April 1, 1985 in Jacksonville, Florida, the oldest of three children of Tom and Sharon Murphy. Tom taught kindergarten while Sharon sold insurance (in one amusing anecdote, an 11-year-old Murphy declared he wanted to be “an insurance person” for his school yearbook). Younger brother Jonathan (b. 1990) was a 19th-round pick by the Twins in 2012 and spent three seasons as an outfielder in their minor league system. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Chicago Cubs made the splashiest headlines of the new year by signing Alex Bregman — three-time All-Star, two-time top-five MVP finisher, and 2017 World Series champion — to a five-year, $175 million contract. It’s the second-richest contract signed this offseason in terms of total sticker price, and even after accounting for significant deferrals, it’s the second-highest AAV of any contract signed so far this winter.

I don’t want to rehash too much of what Davy Andrews covered in his writeup, but it’s an interesting move to be sure. The Cubs weren’t exactly hard-up for infield help, with Matt Shaw, Dansby Swanson, and Nico Hoerner (from left to right) occupying the three positions Bregman might conceivably occupy. Hoerner’s in his last year of team control, and you might argue that Shaw — my preseason pick for NL Rookie of the Year — disappointed a little in 2025. (I think a 93 wRC+ and 1.5 WAR in 126 games is perfectly OK for a rookie third baseman, though Bregman would likely represent a significant upgrade.)

But for the time being, both incumbents remain in the Cubs organization, leaving a bit of a logjam for manager Craig Counsell to sort out. Nevertheless, I know what the Cubs’ next move should be: Signing Brendan Rodgers. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a big night in Chicago. On Saturday, about an hour before Caleb Williams and the Bears defeated the Packers in the Wild Card round, erasing an 18-point deficit with a fourth-quarter comeback so furious that it earned the rare non-baseball wheeee from Sarah Langs, the Cubs elicited a different kind of dopamine rush. As Jon Heyman of The New York Post first reported, Alex Bregman has agreed to a five-year, $175 million contract to play in Wrigley Field. A year after Bregman signed a high-value, prove-it pact with the Red Sox, he’s finally gotten the long-term deal he sought, while the Cubs got a premier player to replace free agent Kyle Tucker. The deal contains no opt-outs and a full no trade clause. It’s the third-largest in franchise history, though on Sunday morning, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported that it contains $70 million in deferred money, dropping the average annual value to just over $30 million. Bregman should remain in Wrigley through his age-36 season. It is a huge move, and the likely pièce de résistance for one of the most aggressive offseasons in recent memory for the Cubs.

Just in case you need a refresher on his résumé, Bregman ranked second on our Top 50 Free Agents list this winter, and for good reason. He’s a two-time World Series champion and three-time All-Star who owns a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger, an All-Star Game MVP, and two top-five AL MVP finishes. Since his first full season in 2017, he’s accrued 41.8 WAR, eighth most among all position players. Aside from a partial rookie year and the truncated 2020 campaign, he’s finished below 3.0 WAR just once, in an injury-shortened 2021 season. (Any career recap also has to include at least some mention of Bregman’s role in Houston’s sign-stealing scheme in 2017 and 2018. Bregman would express regret about the scandal, but his initial deflections – “the commissioner made his report, the Astros made their decision, no further comment on it” – rankled fans, and his apologies fell flat with many outside of Houston.)

Bregman is no longer the MVP candidate he was in 2018 and 2019, when he ran a combined 162 wRC+ and put up 16.2 WAR, but he’s been extraordinarily consistent ever since. Not only has he averaged a 124 wRC+ over the past six seasons, he’s kept within 13 points of that mark every single year and he’s combined that offensive excellence with great defense at third. He earned MVP votes as recently as 2023, and he was on pace to pick up some more in 2025 until a quad strain and a late-August slump changed the trajectory of his season; he still managed a .273/.360/.462 line with 18 home runs, a 125 wRC+, and 3.5 WAR in 114 games. Read the rest of this entry »

This offseason has been reasonably busy in terms of actual moves, but light on rumors. One of the few exceptions has involved the Marlins’ Edward Cabrera. The Yankees’ interest in the 27-year-old right-hander has been consistent throughout the winter, but it appears they’ve been beaten to the punch.

Cabrera is indeed on the move, but he’s bound for Chicago, not New York, as Michael Cerami of Bleacher Nation reported late Wednesday morning. The Cubs get a hard-throwing starting pitcher, fresh off a 3.53 ERA in 137 2/3 innings, with three years of team control remaining. In order to entice the Marlins to part with Cabrera, Chicago gave up three position player prospects: Owen Caissie, shortstop Cristian Hernandez, and corner infielder Edgardo De Leon. The Yankees, Jon Heyman says, were “never close.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hello everyone, and welcome to the final mailbag of 2025! I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season.

We are now officially in what my family refers to as the lobe of the year, the week between Christmas and New Year, when a lot of us wind down and spend time with friends and loved ones. It’s a time for relaxing and reflecting. You’ll notice that here at FanGraphs, aside from this mailbag and a few transaction reactions, we are mostly taking it slow. Instead, we’re republishing our favorite FanGraphs pieces of the year. You can check those out here, or as they populate the homepage from now through the end of next week.

In this week’s mailbag, we’ll cover the best players who never received a Hall of Fame vote, NPB posting rules, and Dillon Dingler’s breakout season. Before we do, though, 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 »

At first, it was a trickle. A Gregory Soto here, a Hoby Milner there. On Tuesday, though, we were staring down a veritable deluge. In a single day, the low-to-mid-tier short-term left-handed pitching market got ransacked like a Ralph’s on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. In rapid succession, three cromulent southpaws inked deals. First, it was Caleb Thielbar, returning to the Cubs on a one-year pact. Foster Griffin followed, lured back from Japan by a $5.5 million guarantee from the Nationals. Finally, Caleb Ferguson linked up with the Reds, also for a single year. (Later on Tuesday, Drew Pomeranz joined the party; he agreed to a one-year contract with the Angels, which be covered in a separate post.) Let’s assess each of these deals in the order in which they signed:

Caleb Thielbar

When Thielbar appeared on one of these roundups around this time last year, it was under sorrier circumstances. The weathered middle reliever had just dropped a stinker, walking 11.1% of hitters on his way to 47 1/3 innings of a 5.32 ERA. The Cubs handed him a “here’s your last chance” $2.75 million; given that Thielbar was heading into his age-38 season, another shoddy campaign would’ve likely marked the end of a surprisingly successful career for the former 18th rounder.

Instead, the wily veteran innovated his way out of a hole, adding a new pitch and delivering a vintage Thielbar performance. The terms of his deal have not yet been disclosed, but considering that many relievers this offseason have signed for more money than they were expected to get, Thielbar almost certainly received a healthy raise to keep playing ball for a living.

In 2025, his strikeout rate remained down a few points from his 30ish% peak, but Thielbar got his command back, in part due to his decision to replace a good chunk of his big old sweepers with a tighter, cutterish hard slider. The slutter (sorry) was a genius bridge between his three other pitches, which are all relatively easy to identify out-of-hand. By adding a pitch that he could conceivably tunnel with his four-seamer, curveball, and sweeper, he seems to have increased the effectiveness of his entire arsenal.

See all of those yellow dots on the pitch plot above? That pitch did not exist before this year. In 2024, Thielbar primarily attacked lefties with the sweeper, throwing it 55% of the time in same-handed matchups. A pitch with all that movement — 14 inches of horizontal movement on average — is hard to land for strikes. His new slider doesn’t have that sort of crazy break, and he had a much easier time throwing it in and around the zone.

And it wasn’t just a chase pitch to lefties. Thielbar also used the new slider as a soft-contact generator against right-handed batters, jamming them inside with respectable velo and glove-side break:

Otherwise, it was vintage Thielbar, slinging slow, high-ride fastballs and some of the prettiest curveballs in the sport. He handled righties and lefties alike, and will assume a similar role in the Chicago bullpen, navigating medium-high leverage situations, particularly when that leverage context coincides with a run of lefties.

Foster Griffin

Last we saw of Griffin stateside, it was 2022, and he was languishing in Quad-A limbo, making brief cameos with the Royals and Blue Jays before hopping on a bus back to Omaha or Buffalo. Back then, he was a fringy bullpen arm, leaning on a cutter with a movement profile that coincidentally resembled Thielbar’s new slider. On top of the cutter, Griffin featured a dead-zone four-seamer at 93 mph, a pretty standard curveball, and a changeup with some quality arm-side fade.

The uninspiring stuff and varied arsenal felt more befitting of a backend starter, and starting is exactly what Griffin took to with the Yomiuri Giants, where he pitched some excellent ball for three seasons. The final was his finest for the Tokyo-based club. He posted the third-best FIP (1.78) among NPB hurlers with at least 70 innings pitched, striking out a quarter of hitters and allowing just a single home run.

What changed? For that, I’ll hand it over to James Fegan, who wrote up a little blurb on Griffin for The Board:

The addition of a low-80s splitter is the profile-changing development since the last of Griffin’s eight career big league innings. Its raw action won’t knock you out of your chair, but it flirted with a 50% miss rate this past season because Griffin almost never leaves it in mistake locations. His steep approach angle makes the pitch nearly impossible to lift, allowing Griffin to allow fewer home runs (18) in over 300 innings in Japan than he gave up in his last full season in the PCL (20) in 2019. Even topping out at 93 mph now, this is still too much of a nibbling profile to project him beyond a multi-inning swingman role. But now that he can wield his splitter as an out pitch to either side, it’s easier to see Griffin carving out a Tyler Alexander-shaped niche at the end of a pitching staff.

The prospect team gave Griffin a 35+ FV grade, suggesting he is unlikely to do much more than hoover up innings for the Nationals. But if there’s a club in need of some innings-hoovering, it’s the Nats, who have a bunch of question marks on the staff after MacKenzie Gore, and that’s assuming they hang onto Gore, which, who knows.

Caleb Ferguson

The second left-handed Caleb in this roundup is 10 years younger than his predecessor. Once a whiff chaser with shaky command, Ferguson leaned hard into contact suppression in 2025, scaling back his four-seamer against same-handed hitters while boosting the sinker to nearly 50% usage. At times, this worked great. His strikeout rate dropped over eight percentage points, but the heavy combination of sinkers and cutters gave Ferguson some of the lowest barrel rates and exit velocities in the league.

Chasing weak contact as a relief pitcher can be a blessing and a curse. Attacking the zone with three fastballs keeps the walks down and the extra base hits to a minimum. But it also means a big chunk of balls in play, and one day the BABIP gods will rise with vengeance and rain misery upon your poor ERA. Unfortunately, this happened to Ferguson at a crucial juncture. Plucked from Midwestern obscurity in Pittsburgh and thrust into a playoff push in Seattle, he initially performed well before running into a spate of poor performances in late August and early September. In a tight postseason race, that was that — Ferguson didn’t get many leverage opportunities for the remainder of the season, and his brief playoff work went terribly. Brought in to close down a seven-run lead in the ninth inning of ALDS Game 3, Ferguson allowed three runs without recording an out, requiring Dan Wilson to throw Andrés Muñoz on a day that he could’ve secured some crucial rest. It cannot be great for a reliever to get shelled on a big stage in his final moments before hitting the free market.

For most of his Mariners tenure, Ferguson was treated like a member of the B team, deployed mostly in losing efforts. Will the Reds, themselves a recent playoff club, trust him to handle leads in close games? It’s sort of on the edge. RosterResource sees Ferguson as the fourth arm out of the pen, behind Emilio Pagán, Tony Santillan, and Graham Ashcraft. Astute readers will note that all three of those guys throw baseballs with their right arm, and so Ferguson will assume the mantle of Most Trusted Lefty, prying that loosely held title from Sam Moll’s fingertips.

Every winter, the shiniest free agents on the market capture the attention of baseball fans everywhere. “Ooh, could you imagine Kyle Tucker in my team’s colors?” That’s a fun conversation regardless of which team you root for. But most teams aren’t going to sign Kyle Tucker. Most teams aren’t going to sign a top 10 free agent, period. Indeed, come June and July, there’s a good chance that the free agent signing you’re going to either laud or rue will involve some reliever you’d never heard of six months prior. So let’s meet a batch of pitchers who are going to make fans remember their name, one way or another, in 2026: Hoby Milner, Mark Leiter Jr., and Colin Holderman.

I used to think of Hoby Milner as one of the unending wave of Brewers who looked unbeatable in navy and gold and unspectacular elsewhere, but as it turns out, that was unfair to him. He departed the upper Midwest for the first time since 2020 last winter, signing a $3 million deal with the Texas Rangers after Milwaukee non-tendered him. Far from crashing out, though, he spun another solid season, his fourth in a row, while handling 70.1 innings of the highest-leverage work of his career. He finished the season with a 3.84 ERA and a 3.39 FIP, pretty much a dead ringer for his career numbers.

Why, then, is his deal with the Chicago Cubs for just one year and $3.75 million? It’s because he’s an extreme lefty specialist, and that skill set generally comes with a limited market. Milner isn’t a traditional late-inning reliever, a matchup-proof flamethrower. He has enormous platoon splits, triple the league average for lefty pitchers over a fairly substantial sample. It’s for exactly the reason you’d expect: Milner throws sidearm and with little velocity, relying on a sweeper that he throws nearly half the time against lefties to tie them into knots. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Before he turned 25 years old, Cole Hamels had already reached the pinnacle of the baseball world. At the tail end of his third major league season, the lanky lefty — listed at 6-foot-4, 205 pounds — had gone 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA during the 2008 postseason, leading the Phillies to their first championship since 1980 and winning NLCS and World Series Most Valuable Player honors along the way. Suddenly, the aura he projected — a handsome laidback surfer from San Diego — needed an upgrade. He became a celebrity, expected to dress the part and live up to outsized expectations, both of which he did with some amount of awkwardness but a fair level of success.

Hamels spent the first 9 1/2 seasons of his major league career with the Phillies, part of the nucleus that helped them climb out of the doldrums to become a powerhouse that won five straight division titles. Armed with a fastball that could reach the mid-90s, an above-average curve, and a killer changeup — inspired by watching Padres closer Trevor Hoffman in his heyday — Hamels was a master of deception thanks to his consistency in throwing those three pitches from the same release point. “It’s devastating for a hitter when all of them look like a fastball, and two of them aren’t,” pitching guru Tom House, who worked with Hamels when he was a junior in high school, told Sports Illustrated’s Ben Reiter in 2009.

Hamels’ career wasn’t without hiccups. He missed significant time due to injuries while in the minors, including both the usual arm troubles and a fracture in his pitching hand, sustained during a barroom brawl while standing up for a close friend. Although he helped the Phillies get a shot at repeating their title in 2009, his postseason was a disaster; during the World Series against the Yankees, he nearly came to blows with teammate Brett Myers. At times he was overshadowed by other members of his rotation, Cy Young winners for whom the Phillies traded in case Hamels wasn’t enough, namely Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. For as well as he pitched, Hamels himself never came close to winning a Cy Young, and he made just four All-Star teams. Read the rest of this entry »

When our 2025 Colorado Rockies Top Prospect list was published last January, a 24-year-old pitcher coming off of an underwhelming season ranked 14th with a 45+ FV. Over 54 innings with the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats, Juan Mejia had logged a 5.00 ERA and an equally-unhealthy 12.3% walk rate. Eric Longenhagen nonetheless remained enamored of his potential. Offering a “relatively bullish projection,” our lead prospect analyst wrote that the righty “is too freaky to slide,” because he possessed “one of the more explosive and athletic deliveries in the minors” as well as a mid-to-high-90s fastball and an “overtly nasty” slider.

Longenhagen’s faith was realized in the youngster’s rookie season. Not only did Mejia make 55 appearances, he put up a 3.96 ERA, a 3.71 FIP, and a 26.1% strikeout rate over 61-and-a-third innings. Among Rockies relievers, only Jimmy Herget took the mound more frequently and tossed more frames.

When I spoke to Mejia at Fenway Park this past summer — Colorado PR staffer Edwin Perez served as an interpreter — I learned that he has a connection with Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello. Both were signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2017, and they were together, along with other starry-eyed hopefuls, when Mejia first caught the eye of a Rockies scout.

“When I was 16, I was doing a tryout,” recalled Mejia, who hails from Baní, roughly an hour south of Santo Domingo. “I don’t remember how many teams were there, but there were a lot of them. That’s where I met Brayan Bello, who a lot of scouts were there to see. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Hendricks announced his retirement as the GM Meetings were getting underway earlier this week, which presented a good opportunity to get learned perspectives on how “The Professor” pitched effectively at baseball’s highest level despite a fastball that rarely exceeded 90 mph. Moreover, it provided a chance to ask if teams should be trying to develop more pitchers like Hendricks, rather than focusing so heavily on power arms.

Three executives at the just-completed meetings struck me as likely to have especially good insight into those subjects. Here is what they had to say about both the Dartmouth College product, and how difficult it is to develop pitchers who can succeed in the way that he did.

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JED HOYER — CHICAGO CUBS

Hendricks spent 11 of his 12 seasons with the Chicago Cubs, all with Hoyer serving as the team’s general manager or president of baseball operations. The first question I posed to the longtime exec was this: To what extent can, or should, teams try to develop more pitchers like Hendricks?

“That’s a great question,” replied Hoyer. “I think you’ll wait a long time before you get the next Kyle Hendricks. His command was exceptional. His changeup was exceptional. If you go back and look at his strikeout rates — I don’t know exactly when it fell down a little bit — but I would say that for six, seven years of his career, he wasn’t a power pitcher in terms of strikeout rates, but he wasn’t a finesse pitcher either. Along with not walking guys, he struck guys out. He just did it in a different way. Read the rest of this entry »