As both a player and a manager, Davey Johnson was a standout and a man ahead of the curve. In a 13-season playing career that spanned from 1965 to ’78, primarily as a second baseman with the Orioles and Braves, he made four All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, played in three World Series, and set a home run record. In a 17-season managerial career that stretched from 1984 to 2013, covered five different teams, and included a decade-long hiatus, Johnson won six division titles, one Wild Card berth, a championship, and two Manager of the Year awards. He’s indelibly linked to the Mets, first for making the final out in their 1969 upset of the Orioles and then for piloting their ’86 juggernaut to a World Series win at the peak of a six-season run.

Johnson had a knack for turning around losing teams, and for connecting with his players. Decades before the analytical revolution took hold in baseball, he was a pioneer in the use of personal computers by managers, at a time when the machines were still a novelty. Drawing upon his offseason studies at Trinity University — from which he earned a B.S. in mathematics — and Johns Hopkins, as well as his experience playing for Earl Weaver with the Orioles, he was renowned for using statistical databases to figure out probabilities and optimize his lineup and bullpen matchups.

Johnson, who last worked in baseball as a consultant for the Nationals in 2014, died on Friday in Sarasota, Florida following a long illness. He was 82 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you a fan of a team in playoff position? Are you tearing your hair out because their bullpen has been completely unable to get anybody out over the past couple weeks? Is this starting to get creepy? Does it feel as if I’m staring straight into your very soul? Worry not. I’m just playing the odds. Below is a table that shows bullpen performance over the last 14 days, but only for the 13 teams with at least a 12% chance of making the playoffs. I’ve highlighted the teams whose ERA ranks in the bottom half of the league over that stretch:

There are the Red Sox in fifth place, looking solid with a 3.40 ERA. But, uh, this not exactly an encouraging sign for all these playoff teams. That’s a lot of yellow. Boston is the only team in the top 10; no one else has a bullpen ERA below 4.00. Only five of these teams are even in the top half of the league. The Mets, Yankees, Cubs, and Blue Jays all have ERAs over 5.00.

The Brewers are tied with the Twins for the league lead with five blown saves in the past two weeks. The Blue Jays and Phillies each have four. Just a reminder: The Brewers have the best record in baseball, and the Blue Jays and Phillies are tied for the second best. All of sudden, none of them can close out a game to save their lives.

Once again, I need to disavow any supernatural influence here. I don’t think there’s a paranormal reason that seemingly every good baseball team’s bullpen is in a rut. It’s mostly a coincidence. If we look at FIP, things are much more reasonable. Six of our 13 teams are in the top 10, and only four are in the bottom half of the league. That’s pretty much what you’d expect. Most of the good teams have strong bullpens. This is a short stretch, a small sample of innings, and a volatile cohort to start with. The Brewers’ bullpen has an excellent 3.29 FIP over the past two weeks, but it’s blown five saves anyway. Stuff happens.

I’ll break down the four teams at the bottom of the table along with a couple others I found noteworthy due to injury reasons, or because I’m worried about them heading into the playoffs, but that’s mostly what I wanted to tell you. All the bullpens seem to be blowing up right now. It’s weird. If you’re tearing your hair out because we’re in September and your bullpen can’t hold on to a lead, relax. First, there may be enough time to right the ship. Second, whoever you’re facing in the playoffs can’t hold a lead right now either, unless it’s the Red Sox (who gave up eight runs in a bullpen game last night, presumably because that’s what all the cool kids are doing).

Mets
The Mets lead the league with a whopping six relievers on the IL right now: Reed Garrett, Drew Smith, Danny Young, A.J. Minter, Max Kranick, and Dedniel Núñez. Smith, Minter, Kranick, and Garrett had all been pitching well before their injuries. That’s four good relievers lost, and only Garrett has a chance to return this season. That’s how the Mets ended up claiming Wander Suero, who has thrown just 6 1/3 major league innings in the last two seasons combined, from the Braves off waivers yesterday. Suero has a 1.35 ERA and 2.63 FIP over 46 2/3 innings in Triple-A Gwinnett, and he will get the chance to prove that’s not a fluke. The Mets called him up less than half an hour ago to take the spot of the struggling Kodai Senga, who has been optioned to Syracuse.

More than that, Ryan Helsley has been completely ineffective since the deadline trade that brought him to New York from St. Louis. He had a 3.00 ERA and 3.56 FIP as a Cardinal, and he has a 11.45 ERA and 6.50 FIP as a Met. Helsley said last week that he thinks he’s been tipping pitches. With any luck, he’ll get that sorted out. If he does that and Garrett comes back pitching well, they’ll join Tyler Rogers, lefties Brooks Raley and Gregory Soto, and closer Edwin Díaz, all of whom are putting up good numbers this season. Somehow the Mets could still put together a solid bullpen going into the playoffs.

Dodgers
The Dodgers’ relievers rank third in the majors with 5.2 WAR this season, but that’s mostly because they’ve been asked to throw 570 1/3 innings, the most in baseball. At the moment, RosterResource says they’re tied with the Brewers at five injured relievers, one behind the Mets. They lost Evan Phillips to Tommy John surgery in May, deadline acquisition Brock Stewart went on the IL with shoulder inflammation almost immediately after the trade, and Alex Vesia strained an oblique on August 21. Jack Dreyer, Justin Wrobleski, and Ben Casparius are the only relievers on the team with FIPs below 3.50. Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates are load-bearing pieces who have taken major steps back and lost time to injury besides, and yet the Dodgers are still one of the higher teams on the list. After missing time with forearm tightness earlier in the season, Blake Treinen has allowed just two runs in his last 12 appearances, and his ERA is down to 3.00.

Yankees
The headliner here is the 5.60 ERA that Devin Williams has put up this season, but as Michael Baumann wrote earlier today, the underlying numbers aren’t that bad. They’re maybe even good. The Yankees lost Jake Cousins to Tommy John surgery in June and Jonathan Loáisiga to a flexor strain in August. Brent Headrick is also on the IL after taking a line drive off his pitching arm. The Yankees have also suffered blowups from Paul Blackburn and Yerry De los Santos. They pulled the plug on deadline acquisition Jake Bird almost immediately. He had a 4.73 ERA and and 3.50 FIP in Colorado before the deadline, but he got into just three games for the Yankees, allowing six runs over two innings before being optioned to Triple-A, where he has continued to struggle. Luke Weaver has been bitten by the home run bug lately, allowing four in his last seven appearances for an ERA of 5.14. However, his average exit velocity over that stretch is lower than it’s been the rest of the season, and he’s run a 2.53 xFIP. It seems more like bad luck than anything.

Fernando Cruz and David Bednar have been lights-out, Tim Hill is still a groundball machine, and Camilo Doval hasn’t allowed a run in his last five appearances. Over the entire season, the Yankees bullpen has a 3.93 xFIP, tied for second-best in baseball. Over the past two weeks, they’ve got the second-best FIP despite the hideous ERA. It’s hard to imagine them making a run without Williams and Weaver (The Deadly W’s) turning things around, but this isn’t necessarily a disastrous ‘pen either.

Cubs
By most metrics, the Cubs bullpen has been right in the middle of the pack this year. In the past two weeks, its 3.05 xFIP is the third best in baseball. So why are the ERA and FIP so ugly? That’s the danger of playing in homer-friendly Wrigley Field in August. Over that stretch, 21.1% of their fly balls have gone for home runs, second only to the Rockies (and not coincidentally, they recently spent a three-game series in Colorado). Drew Pomeranz and Taylor Rogers have put up good seasons, but have each given up a couple of homers in recent weeks, and because the Cubs have relied on their bullpen less than just about any other team over that stretch, those mistakes have been magnified. Nothing that’s happened in the past two weeks has made me change my opinion of this relief corps.

Phillies
Philadelphia’s bullpen has been an issue all year long. Free agent signings Joe Ross and Jordan Romano have not worked out at all, putting up a combined -0.5 WAR over 86 appearances and 93 2/3 innings. The good news is that the bullpen looks very different now. The Phillies released Ross, and Romano hit the IL with middle finger inflammation. They signed David Robertson in free agency in July, traded for Jhoan Duran at the deadline, and got star lefty José Alvarado back from an 80-game PED suspension on August 20. Alvardo has looked very rusty since his return and won’t be available for the playoffs, but Robertson and Duran have been excellent. Together with Matt Strahm, Orion Kerkering, and Tanner Banks, the Phillies should have a serviceable, if shallow, bullpen going into October. With Zack Wheeler out and Aaron Nola struggling, the rotation may be the bigger concern.

Blue Jays
How much time do you have? The Blue Jays had the worst bullpen in baseball in 2024, and if nothing else, they looked primed to bounce back. They non-tendered Jordan Romano. They signed the excellent Jeff Hoffman, traded for Nick Sandlin, brought back Yimi García and Ryan Yarbrough, and took flyers on arms like Amir Garrett, Jacob Barnes, and Richard Lovelady. And they have bounced back. They rank in the middle of the pack in both ERA and FIP, and seventh in xFIP. Lately, though, they just can’t seem to get outs.

They released Yarbrough before the season. The fliers they took haven’t worked out, nor have in-house guys like Chad Green, Zach Pop, and Erik Swanson. They’ve lost major pieces, with both Sandlin and García out for the season. Other injuries forced Easton Lucas and Eric Lauer into starting roles, where they’ve performed significantly worse. Hoffman put up three ugly performances in the last week of August, though he’s looked much better in the past week. Although the underlying numbers aren’t bad, deadline acquisition Louis Varland has a 6.91 ERA in 15 appearances as a Blue Jay.

If Hoffman can keep things straightened out, if Varland’s luck can turn around, if Lucas and Lauer can get back in the bullpen, if the arms that got them here – Yariel Rodríguez, Brendon Little, Braydon Fisher – can keep doing what they’re doing, the Blue Jays could have a decent bullpen going into the playoffs. But that’s a lot of ifs.

On Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani hit the second-hardest pull-side home run by a left-handed batter at PNC Park this season. If that doesn’t sound like it could make your head explode, well, that’s the point. I picked the most boring way to tell the story.

Anyone who saw this particular home run knows that a more accurate representation of the experience would be this: On Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani hit the hardest ball of his entire career, turning around a 99-mph Bubba Chandler fastball on the inside corner and launching a 120-mph missile that skimmed over the Pittsburgh turf and triggered a series of small explosions as it crashed into the right field bleachers. It was the third-hardest-hit ball of the entire 2025 season, and the sixth-hardest home run in the 10-year history of the Statcast era. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets swept the Phillies this week, which made headlines for two reasons: First, the Mets have now won 10 straight against the Phillies at Citi Field, dating back to last September, and including Games 3 and 4 of last year’s NLDS. If the Phillies don’t win a game there in the playoffs, they don’t face the Mets in New York again until the last weekend of June 2026. A potential 21-month losing streak at a divisional rival is tough to swallow, though it’s good to see that everyone’s being super normal about it.

Second, it kept the NL East race alive. The Phillies entered this division matchup seven games up with 32 to play; had they won the series, they would’ve basically had the division title in the bag. As it stands now, they’re up five, with the Mets coming to Philadelphia for a four-game set in mid-September. The Phillies are still 3-to-1 favorites, according to our playoff odds, but it’s a real pennant race now.

But this sweep is most important for a reason that went a little under the radar. While the Mets were beating seven shades of you-know-what out of the Phillies, the Dodgers were doing the same to the Reds in Los Angeles. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a rough season for Francisco Alvarez — and specifically his hands. The 23-year-old catcher fractured a hamate in his left hand while taking batting practice on March 8, and after undergoing surgery, missed the first four weeks of the regular season. He scuffled upon returning, to the point that the Mets optioned him to Triple-A Syracuse in late June, but particularly since returning in late July, he hit well until he sprained the ulnar collateral ligament of his right thumb (as opposed to the UCL of his elbow) while making a headfirst slide on August 17. The injury, which requires surgery to fix, appeared to be season-ending, but to the Mets’ surprise, Alvarez has been able to swing the bat without pain, so he began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Syracuse on Wednesday. Unfortunately, in his third plate appearance of the game, he was hit on the left pinkie by an 89-mph sinker and had to leave the game.

Alvarez, who also missed seven weeks last year due to surgery to repair a torn UCL in his left thumb, was sent for testing after being removed. At this writing, the Mets have yet to reveal his prognosis, but this may set back his return, and he’ll still need another surgery this offseason. When available, he’s been one of the Mets’ more productive hitters, a big step up from the team’s other catchers on the offensive side. In 56 games, he’s hit for a career high 125 wRC+ (.265/.349/.438) with seven homers in 209 plate appearances, good for 1.4 WAR. Luis Torrens, who hit well while serving as the team’s regular catcher during Alvarez’s early-season absence, has slumped to the point that he’s batting .218/.282/.320 (73 wRC+) in 245 PA, and third-stringer Hayden Senger has been even less productive, hitting .180/.227/.197 (22 wRC+) in 67 PA.

[Update: On Thursday afternoon, Alvarez revealed that his pinkie is fractured. He said he hopes to play again this season, but a timeline for that has yet to be determined.]

The Mets, who are now 72-61, just swept a three-game series against the Phillies (76-57) at Citi Field to pull within four games of the NL East leaders. They’ve won eight of their last 11 games after losing 14 of 16 from July 28 to August 15, a skid that bumped them down to third in the NL Wild Card race, though they now have a 4 1/2-game cushion over the Reds (68-66). They’ve got some other injuries that could affect their drive for a playoff spot, but in that, they’re not alone. What follows here is a roundup of fairly recent injuries among NL contenders, some that slipped through the cracks in our coverage during recent weeks and others that merit mention so long as we’re on the topic; an alarming number of these involve fingers. I’ll go division-by-division, and follow this with a similar AL roundup. Read the rest of this entry »

When he was first featured here at FanGraphs in August 2022, Emmet Sheehan was 22 years old and pitching for the High-A Great Lakes Loons. A sixth-round selection the previous summer out of Boston College, the right-hander had been assigned a 40 FV and a no. 25 ranking when our 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers Top Prospects list came out a few months earlier. But his stock was clearly rising. Sheehan boasted a 2.72 ERA, and he had fanned 93 batters while allowing just 39 over 59 2/3 dominant innings.

His ascent was rapid. Sheehan reached Los Angeles midway through the 2023 season, and enjoyed some immediate success. Debuting against the San Francisco Giants, he hurled six scoreless innings without surrendering a hit. He then went on to finish the year 4-1 with a 4.92 ERA and 4.85 FIP in 13 appearances comprising 60 1/3 innings. But the hard-throwing righty subsequently hit a speed bump. Sheehan opened last season on the IL due to forearm inflammation, and ultimately underwent Tommy John surgery in May. He didn’t return to the mound until this May.

He’s been rock solid since rejoining the Dodgers rotation. Over eight starts and a pair of relief outings, Sheehan has a 3.56 ERA, a 3.23 FIP, and a 27.6% strikeout rate over 48 innings. Moreover, he shoved his last time out. This past Monday, the erstwhile BC Eagle dominated the Cincinnati Reds to the tune of 10 strikeouts, allowing just three baserunners over seven scoreless innings.

Sheehan sat down to talk about his return to action when the Dodgers played at Fenway Park in late July. A night earlier, he’d allowed a pair of runs over five frames in a 5-2 win over the Red Sox.

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David Laurila: You’re back after missing a year due to Tommy John surgery. Has anything changed, or are you basically the same pitcher as before?

Emmet Sheehan: “I’m similar. With the rehab process and having a year to think about things, that has changed me in some ways. Obviously, learning from these guys up here has changed me, too. Getting to be around guys like Kersh [Clayton Kershaw], Glass [Tyler Glasnow], Yama [Yoshinobu Yamamoto]… all of them are amazing pitchers. I try to pick stuff up from them, just find little things. We’re all different, but we still do some things similarly.

“Pitch-wise, the one big change was my changeup. Before, it was really big. I was rolling it a lot, like really over-pronating and maybe dropping the slot a little bit, trying to get more depth on it. Coming out of rehab, pronating hard didn’t feel great in my elbow, so we tried the kick-change grip — I’m doing the little spike with my middle finger. And it’s been great. For one thing, I can sell it more like my fastball.” Read the rest of this entry »

Beginning last Thursday and continuing through the weekend, several key rehabbers made appearances in the upper levels of the minor leagues. A few might have a meaningful impact on playoff races, while others are scuffling. I dish on eight pitchers below. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t look now, but for the first time in three and a half months, the NL West has a new leader. While the Dodgers have struggled to the point of face-planting, the Padres have surged, producing a 10-game swing in the NL West standings since July 3 thanks in large part to a dominant bullpen and some timely upgrades ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. The Southern California rivals are set to square off six times in the next 10 days, starting with a weekend series in Los Angeles — but the Padres will be without staff ace Michael King, who landed on the injured list on Thursday due to left knee inflammation.

After notching 93 victories last season — the second-highest total in franchise history — and making the playoffs for the third year out of five, the Padres bolted out of the gate in 2025, winning 15 of their first 19 games and spending much of April leading the division. They fell out of the top spot on April 26, but spent the next six weeks or so within striking distance before a 13-15 June dragged them down. Both the Padres and Giants were nine games out of first at the close of play on July 3, but since then, San Diego has put up the NL’s second-best record behind only Milwaukee (28-5), while Los Angeles and San Francisco are tied for the league’s third-worst record, half a game better than lowly Colorado and Washington (both 12-22):

The Padres took over first place on Wednesday afternoon in emphatic fashion, scoring seven second-inning runs off control-challenged Giants stater Kai-Wei Teng and cruising to an 11-1 victory. With that, they completed a three-game sweep, extended their winning streak to five games, and claimed their 14th victory in their last 17 games dating back to July 26. Later that night, the Dodgers coughed up a 5-2 lead, allowing the Angels to sweep them in Anaheim and knock them a full game out of first. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. August is a great time for reflection in the baseball world. The trade deadline has passed, which means what you see is pretty much what you get roster-wise. The playoff picture is generally clear, but no one has clinched yet. It’s too early to think about postseason rotations, but too late to think about turning the year around. The urgency mostly isn’t there – unless you’re a Mets fan trying to ward off 25 years of ghosts, of course. But the downtime of the baseball season has its own small delights, and even when you aren’t watching the brightest stars on the biggest stage, baseball is awesome. So thanks as always to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the column format, and let’s get going.

1. Opportunity
The Twins might have traded away a ton of their major league roster at the deadline, but that doesn’t mean they’re filling up the lineup with replacement players they found at a local tryout. Seven of the nine everyday position players on the current squad were drafted by Minnesota in the first two rounds. The other two, Alan Roden and Kody Clemens, aren’t exactly nobodies – they’re both third round draft picks the Twins acquired this year, and of course Clemens’ dad is famous too.

It’s tough sledding for Quad-A players looking for a major league shot. But while the starters still look like your average major leaguer when it comes to their amateur pedigree, the bench is another matter. Mickey Gasper was a 27th rounder who didn’t debut until he was 28. But he’s only the second-most improbable Twin. Ryan Fitzgerald went undrafted in 2016, didn’t reach Triple-A until he was 27, and finally got his major league break earlier this year as a 30-year-old. He went 0-3 in a single game as an injury replacement, pinch-ran in another, and got sent back down. Sometimes life in the bigs is nasty, brutish, and short.
Read the rest of this entry »

We’re in the phase of the minor league calendar where the domestic complex league seasons have ended, in order to accommodate the incoming draft classes, while the rest of the minor leagues continue with their regular seasons for a few more weeks. There are some recent draftees who have already been sent out to affiliates, but the majority have gotten going at their respective facilities during unofficial “Bridge League” or “Continuation Camp” activity with loose, flexible schedules and start times. There’s a big group chat in which scouts and development personnel (plus a handful of media folks, and probably a clandestine autograph hound or two) exchange lineups and pitching probables to keep everyone abreast of the goings on. Ceasing official play in Arizona and Florida allows teams to onboard their draft classes in an unofficial setting and avoids the traffic jam of minor roster spots, which would exceed the allowed amount if the draft classes were just assigned to affiliates right away.

This is also a fruitful place for rehabbers to see their first real game action since injury because teams can just “roll” innings whenever they feel like it. If you’re on a 25-pitch limit and you’ve hit your count without getting three outs, the inning will just turn over regardless of how many guys are on base. This setting is about development and is not an actual game, so it’s a safe place to shake off rust and work up a sweat. On Tuesday, when the Padres officially caught the Dodgers in the NL West race, I saw their Bridge League teams square off with two rehabbing members of their 40-man rosters getting an inning of work at the start of the game. In this piece, I’ll pass along how Kyle Hurt (Dodgers) and Bradgley Rodriguez (Padres) looked and examine whether either team has a postseason pitching weapon lurking in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »