Archive for Teams

For one day, the Marlins were probably going to make the playoffs. On July 8, after they’d shut out the Mariners, 2-0, our Playoff Odds gave the Fish a 51.5% chance of playing in October. It was the first time they’d crested 50% since 2023.

They had just swept the A’s in West Sacramento and were about to finish sweeping the Mariners at home. Crank, crank, crank, crank, crank went the roller coaster. With the final win against Seattle, the Marlins had won 16 out of 20, tied for the best 20-game span in franchise history. The six-game winning streak that closed that span put them 10 games above .500, at 52-42. Crank, crank, crank. They were tied with the Phillies for the second and third Wild Card spots. They were three full games ahead of the Cardinals in fourth place. Not only were the Marlins going to hold onto Sandy Alcantara at the deadline, wrote Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, but they were going to be buyers for the first time in Peter Bendix’s three years at the helm, “barring” — crank — “an utter” — crank — “collapse.” Then the Playoff Odds took a stomach-churning plunge. It was the opposite of the famous Sarah Langs Whee! It was an Eeew, and it was gross indeed.

The Marlins lost their next 12 games. Last night, after coming within an eyelash of unlucky 13, they finally broke the streak with a win. They blew a three-run lead to the Phillies in the sixth inning and went into the bottom of the ninth down two. But they came back to walk it off on a bases loaded single from Griffin Conine. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written before about one of my favorite baseball traditions: The Rays make a run to the playoffs, and because they’re not the Yankees or Red Sox, and they turn over their entire 40-man roster every 24 months, they show up on TV with a bunch of guys the average sports fan has never heard of.

Come October, America is introduced to a weird reliever when he throws three perfect innings in the ALDS. “Who the frick is this guy?” America asks. “And how does anyone hit him?” Read the rest of this entry »

Caleb Durbin had a brutal first few months of the 2026 season. One week into June, the Boston Red Sox third baseman had come to the plate 208 times to the tune of a .190/.254/.288 slash line and a 47 wRC+. Despite his pull-oriented right-handed stroke seemingly being a good fit for the Green Monster, he had also gone deep just once — in a road game, no less. Understandably, the Fenway faithful weren’t exactly enamored with the player who had come East in February as a part of the multi-player deal that sent high-performing southpaw Kyle Harrison to Milwaukee.

Then things turned around. Since June 9, Durbin has slashed a robust .298/.363/.532 with a 145 wRC+ over 158 plate appearances. Moreover, he has homered nine times, with four of the blasts clearing Fenway’s fabled left-field wall. The most recent of the bunch was an eighth-inning game-decider that lifted the Red Sox to the 14th of their franchise-record-tying 15 consecutive wins.

What exactly did Durbin do to rebound from his disappointing early-season results? I asked him that question in the days leading up to the All-Star break, but before doing so, a related inquiry was in order: How does the present-day Durbin compare to the then-23-year-old New York Yankees prospect I spoke to in May 2023? Read the rest of this entry »

We’re one week away from the August 3 trade deadline, and yet there’s still very little clarity for a handful of teams. The American League is a jumbled mess, and National League teams like the Nationals and Padres are straddling the buy/sell line, too. But one thing is for sure: The Angels will be sellers. What’s not yet settled is the extent to which they’ll sell.

With interim general manager John Mozeliak running the show after the ouster of Perry Minasian, the Angels suddenly have their most decorated baseball ops head since Bill Stoneman, the architect of the 2002 World Series champions, who briefly returned to handle the 2015 trade deadline. That came after a power struggle with manager Mike Scioscia led to Jerry Dipoto’s departure, and Stoneman went through with a handful of depth moves, bringing in post-prime David DeJesus, David Murphy, and Shane Victorino to bolster a club that was 55-47 at the July 31 deadline. Those Angels were just two games out of first place and had a three-in-four chance at making the playoffs. They finished 30-30, fading to third place and out of the playoff picture with an overall record of 85-77. They haven’t had a winning season since then, and they haven’t made the playoffs since the year before, when they won 98 games but were swept by the Royals in the ALDS. It’s been a miserable stretch for the Halos, one that will continue through the remainder of the season. As of Monday morning, our Playoff Odds projected the Angels to finish with their second-worst record in the last 30 years.

Still, these woes don’t have to drag on in perpetuity. The Angels have options aplenty as the trade deadline nears to try and change the direction of their wayward organization. Here are three paths they could take: Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals kicked off trade deadline season in earnest on Saturday night, when Boston sent left-handed pitcher Connelly Early to the Nats for corner infielder Curtis Mead.

Most consequential trades this time of year involve a contender swapping one or more prospects for an established big leaguer. Not so this one. At the time of the trade, the Red Sox and Nationals were in similar positions in the standings: The Sox were 53-50, seven and a half games out of the division lead, but half a game up in the AL Wild Card race. The Nats were 53-52, eight and a half games out of first place in the NL East, but only two games out of a Wild Card spot. Both teams are playing with house money: Boston on account of being 14 games under .500 less than five weeks ago, and Washington on account of… everything that’s happened since the start of the 2020 season.

And there’s little difference between Early and Mead in terms of age or team control: Mead is 25, and barring substantial changes in the next CBA, he’ll be arbitration-eligible after the 2027 season and under team control through 2030. Early is one year younger and one year behind Mead on the journey to both of those milestones.

Sound the alarm, friends, because what we’ve got here is a bona fide challenge trade. Read the rest of this entry »

Three interviews — two with pitchers, another with a hitter — were published here at FanGraphs over the past week. All were the result of lengthy conversations, and in each case, worthwhile snippets landed on the cutting-room floor. This week’s column will lead with those leftovers, which come courtesy of Drew Rasmussen, Cole Sulser, and Pete Alonso.

We’ll start with Rasmussen, who addressed his ability to command his offerings, particularly his four-seam/two-seam/cutter combination.

“Command is kind of a sliding scale,” said the Tampa Bay Rays right-hander, whose 4.3% walked rate ranks lowest among qualified hurlers. “Some days it’s really good and some days it’s not so good. The job is to figure out what you have as quickly as possible. On days when my command is really good… I would say that is situation-driven. If I need a ball on the ground, I can throw it with a little more tail and a little less carry. If I’m just trying to steal strike one, maybe I don’t want the [movement] profile to be as big; that way it has a better chance of staying in the zone.

“Conversely, on days that I’m not overly confident with my command, I simplify to the absolute max,” he continued. “We’re going to try to just throw the same one over and over again. Then, hopefully at some point over the course of the outing, something clicks and I start to get more and more confident, and comfortable, with the command I have that day.” Read the rest of this entry »

Controversy surrounding José Caballero’s pre-pitch routine struck twice in the Bronx this week, with the first time prompting the benches to clear and the second causing unnecessary confusion. In the eighth inning of the Yankees’ 8-5 win over the Pirates on Monday night, Caballero did what he usually does — he dug into the batter’s box and didn’t look up at the pitcher until there were eight seconds left on the pitch timer. The idea is to disrupt the pitcher’s rhythm. Pittsburgh reliever Dennis Santana took exception to Caballero’s tactic — which, again, he has done many, many times for the last four seasons — and yelled at him after getting him to ground into a double play. The benches emptied, and the Pirates complained to MLB about it.

Turns out, the griping worked. After the game, the league told the umpires to more strictly enforce the rules requiring batters to engage with the pitcher with no fewer than eight seconds left on the clock. Instead of warning the batter, and then calling an automatic strike for a repeat violation, the umpires were directed to assess a strike to Caballero for attempting to deceive the pitcher, no matter how much time was left on the pitch timer. Both Caballero and the Yankees claim the league did not notify them about the change. As crew chief Adrian Johnson told a pool reporter after, “He’s been warned all season. We were instructed not to warn him. We were instructed to violate him. That’s what it is. It’s a violation.” Along with Johnson’s poor phrasing, the sudden change in enforcement is quite jarring and, in my opinion, inappropriate. If what the Yankees said is true — that the league didn’t tell them about the change — then I think this is an overstep by MLB to single out a player. Caballero accused the umpires and the league of “picking on” him. But even if MLB did give the Yankees and Caballero the heads up, I think the escalated enforcement is an incorrect interpretation of the rule. I love that Caballero uses the pitch clock to his advantage; pitchers can hold the ball and run down the clock to zero, so why shouldn’t batters be allowed to wait their full allotted time before engaging with the pitcher? Moreover, I also don’t know how Caballero is deceiving the pitcher by doing something he does so frequently. He’s certainly trying to annoy the opposing pitcher, but that’s not deception — that’s good gamesmanship.

Anyway, that’s the last you’ll read about Caballero in this week’s mailbag. Instead, we’ll be answering your questions about Esmerlyn Valdez’s heater, Gunnar Henderson’s woes against fastballs, how to fix the Angels, and whether anyone will break Jesse Orosco’s record for games pitched. 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 »

They might still play in a minor league ballpark, but things were looking up for the Sacramento-ish Athletics coming into the 2026 season. The franchise hadn’t had a winning record (and typically hasn’t even been close) since 2021, with their last stretch of playoff relevance ending after the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The 2025 A’s only went 76-86, but an offensive core of Nick Kurtz, Shea Langeliers, Brent Rooker, Tyler Soderstrom, and Jacob Wilson seemed to give the club a good chance to score runs this year. The A’s entered the season with 21.4% playoff odds, their best in some time.

The team’s most plausible breakout scenario involved leaning on a good offense while cobbling together just enough pitching to keep from being on the short end of a bunch of slugfests. The A’s were even confident enough to be on the other side of a salary dump for once, picking up Jeff McNeil over the winter. Unfortunately, things haven’t gone exactly to plan. The A’s are 43-59 entering play on Friday. The offense has been middling, and though they’ve gotten a few promising pitching performances from J.T. Ginn, Hogan Harris, and Gage Jump, the staff has more holes than a wheel of Emmentaler after a run-in with a shotgun. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifty-one weeks ago, the San Diego Padres traded a king’s ransom in prospects to the Athletics in exchange for depth starter JP Sears and hard-throwing relief ace Mason Miller.

Ordinarily, I would’ve abhorred such a move. The top prospect who went the other way, Leo De Vries, came in at no. 6 overall in the Preseason Top 100 Prospects list, and in my mind there’s no more overrated commodity in baseball than team control for a reliever. What the Phillies gave up for two and a half years of Jhoan Duran, immense a haul as it seemed at the time, was a fraction of what four and a half years of Miller cost.

Still, I kind of got it. Read the rest of this entry »

As we approach August, now is a good time to take a fresh look at the farm systems of some of the clubs we expect to be buyers at the trade deadline. These teams are both contending for a playoff berth and in clear need of a significant upgrade, the kind that will likely require parting with a top farmhand or two. We’ll begin today with the Atlanta Braves. In tandem with an evaluation of the team’s needs and deadline posture, we’ve updated Atlanta’s Top Prospect list to account for the graduations of Didier Fuentes and JR Ritchie, incorporate the new draftees, and reflect a number of promising developments on the farm. If you were solely to evaluate a farm system by its performance relative to expectations, the Braves have a case for the top spot in the league, and that newfound depth looms as a key factor in the club’s playoff push.

The Situation
For a while, the Braves seemed poised to boat race the NL East. The club went 40-20 over the first two months of the season and built a 10-game lead over the Phillies. The Mets, also projected to be strong contenders in the division, languished even less threateningly in dead last. Read the rest of this entry »