On Wednesday afternoon, Tarik Skubal threw what looked for all the world to be his last pitch as a member of the Detroit Tigers.
Skubal fanned six Orioles — including his 1,000th career strikeout — and held the Orioles scoreless into the seventh inning. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, wanting his ace to finish on a valedictory note, let Skubal pitch himself into some trouble in the seventh, but lifted him once Leody Taveras singled in Baltimore’s first run. 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 »
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 »
Cole Sulser has a future as a pitching coach — or coordinator — if he chooses to go that route. A graduate of Dartmouth College with a degree in Engineering Sciences, the 36-year-old right-hander has not only toed the rubber for five major league teams, but also his current club is the ever-progressive Tampa Bay Rays. As much as any hurler in the game, Sulser is well-versed in his craft.
His pitching education predates his July 2024 arrival in St. Petersburg. Ditto his providing insights here at FanGraphs. Then a Baltimore Oriole, Sulser shared thoughts on changeup development, and later on pitch design, in pieces that ran in August 2021. In want of further perspectives from the analytically savvy hurler, I caught up with him when the Rays visited Fenway Park this past weekend.
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David Laurila: How much has pitch design grown since we spoke five years ago?”
Cole Sulser: “I think it has grown a ton. Our understanding is a lot more comprehensive than it was five years ago. Certain teams were maybe ahead of it more than others, but it was definitely a little more surface level. We were looking at some of the more generic aspects in terms of overall spin rate, and maybe just a little bit of efficiency. Now it seems like teams have gotten a lot more in depth in terms of the gyro degree, what your body naturally does, and which pitches may complement that. Instead of searching for specific pitches, they are more looking at what you do naturally, and try to complement that with pitches that would come easier to you.”
Arsenals that include three variations of a fastball — four-seamer, two-seamer, cutter — are increasingly common in today’s game, and Drew Rasmussen is among the trend’s success stories. Relying heavily on a triad of heaters, the 30-year-old Tampa Bay Rays right-hander boasts a 2.96 ERA and a 3.65 FIP over 249 1/3 innings across the 2025-2026 campaigns. Moreover, he just represented the Rays on the American League All-Star team for a second year running.
How Rasmussen became three-heater reliant (just over 80% combined usage) isn’t itself atypical. The way he tells the story of how it happened is atypical… if not a bit curious. In explaining the advent of his most recent — and most impactful — fastball addition, he pinpointed a hitter against whom he’d struggled far less than his telling would suggest.
Rasmussen sat down to talk fastballs when the Rays visited Fenway Park over the weekend. As his responses were expansive — followup questions were few and far between — what he shared is being presented in monologue form.
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Drew Rasmussen: “When I got traded here [in May 2021], I was four-seam and gyro slider — that’s basically what I was throwing in Milwaukee — and then I had a curveball that was very low usage, as well as a bad, bad changeup. Over here, when they transitioned me from the bullpen into the rotation, we learned that I can manipulate the gyro slider a little bit to create a little more lift and give it more of a true cutter profile. I can also manipulate it to get some depth and keep a true slider profile, which gives me the opportunity to pick and choose shapes depending on what I’m looking for. Situationally, what do I want to throw?
“They saw the movement profile of my changeup, so we scrapped that pretty quick. From there we started developing a sweeper — I have the ability to supinate through everything — and that worked pretty well for me in 2021. Then, in 2022, I kept running into Bo Bichette. I had nothing to get him out with. Nothing. I mean, he’s good at hitting balls the other way, and staying on everything. But if you missed in with a breaking ball, he could do pull-side damage. I would be out there frustrated, because the only thing I had to go in on him with was a four-seamer. And at the time, I was cutting it anyway.
“We started playing around with things. Because I had nothing that would work [inside] to him, we would take a shot with a four-seam up and away and he would hit a double into the gap. We would take a shot with a gyro slider down and away, and he would hit it through the four hole. We’d go sweeper and he’d shoot something down the line. I’d try to bounce a curveball and he would hit a line drive up the middle. Everything I threw worked right into his comfort zone, basically. Read the rest of this entry »
Today, it’s another Killers two-fer, covering the left side of the infield. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of a contender (Playoff Odds of at least 10%, a criterion that 22 of the 30 teams meet) and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far (which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season), I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. That may suggest that some of these teams will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because their performance at that spot merits a closer a look. All statistics are through July 12.
Today, we have the first of several Killers two-fers, with a pair of lists covering the right side of the infield. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of a contender (Playoff Odds of at least 10%, a criterion that 22 of the 30 teams meet) and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far (which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season), I have also incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. That may suggest that some of these teams will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because their performance at that spot is worth a look. All statistics are through July 12.
Happy Draft Weekend everyone! The draft broadcast begins at 1 p.m. ET today, with the first four rounds scheduled for Day 1. Then, tomorrow, the draft resumes at 11:30 a.m. ET for rounds 5-20.
As always, FanGraphs has you covered with everything you need to know before, during, and after the draft. Eric Longenhagen, Brendan Gawlowski, Michael Baumann, and Meg Rowley are in Philadelphia providing coverage throughout the weekend. You can find all of our draft coverage here, or by using the navigation widget at the top of our homepage and in our draft pieces. Eric and Brendan’s updated draft rankings are available on The Board, where you’ll also find players’ scouting reports and tool grades. You can read Eric’s draft preview here, and his first mock draft here. Provided he has enough new information to merit one, his second mock draft will run today before the first round, so be on the lookout for that, too. Meanwhile, Michael wrote three excellent draft features, which you can read here, here, and here. Also, be sure to join our Day 1 draft chat, where the FanGraphs crew will be answering your questions and providing updates and analysis beginning at 1 p.m ET.
That’s the last you’ll read about the draft in this mailbag. Instead, we’ll be answering your questions about Pete Crow-Armstrong, Aaron Ashby’s propensity for wins, and games with the highest rates of true outcomes for one team. Plus, I’ll provide the answers to last week’s trivia questions about baseball stats featuring the number 250. 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 »
Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.
May 17
Yesterday, when Derek Jr. was fussy, my wife played a Black Eyes Peas song on her phone and bounced our daughter on a yoga ball. Today it became clear that she considered this to be a successful experiment and that it will be a thing in our household going forward. The baby is fussy. Let’s bounce her to that Black Eyed Peas song. On repeat. Day after day. The Black Eyed Peas playing in our home. This was not a path I could have foreseen. This is not a path I would have chosen. This already seems like it will not be a path I can escape.
While I’m feeding Derek Jr. in the evening, I catch the ninth and 10th innings of the Cubs and White Sox. The 10th inning is one of the most exciting I’ve seen in a while. The Cubs start with Pete Crow-Armstrong as the zombie runner, which already makes it must-see TV. The White Sox broadcast is apparently having some sort of kids’ day celebration, and all of the graphics have a distinctly Backyard Baseball feel to them. If you’ve never played the Backyard Sports games, then this will go right over your head, but as I watch, a realization washes over me: The speedy, lanky, left-handed, red-haired Pete-Crow Armstrong is Major League Baseball’s version of the speedy, lanky, left-handed, red-haired Pete Wheeler. I mean, come on:
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my 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 »
