FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: August 2, 2025
Thirty-six trades in a span of 18 hours. A deadline day record. This after there were a whopping 16 swaps the day before, for an astronomical two-day total of 52 — that’s also a record, and nine more than there were over the final two days before the deadline last year.
Conceptually, the numbers are staggering. But as I sit here writing this mailbag after 7 PM on Friday, the reality of what we all experienced is starting to sink in. And I don’t know about all of you, but after a marathon of editing trade analysis pieces for the better part of the last 48 hours, I’m twitching from what can only be described as an unholy cocktail of caffeine and adrenaline, and I can feel the comedown coming. I’m both absolutely riveted and utterly drained, and the only thing keeping me upright is a keen sense of anticipation for all of the great baseball still to come.
We won’t be covering any trade news in this week’s mailbag. If you want to catch up on or relive the chaos of the last few days, you can find everything we wrote about the trade deadline linked within this roundup post. Instead, we’ll lean a little more evergreen. Before we get to your questions, though, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, 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.
Matt is the associate editor of FanGraphs. Previously, he was the baseball editor at Sports Illustrated. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Men’s Health, Baseball Prospectus, and Lindy’s Sports Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ByMattMartell and Blue Sky @mattmartell.bsky.social.
This is some A+ service here, a reader makes a proposal and we get reactions from multiple players, including quotes from a Hall of Very Good closer and one of the better starters in the league.
I absolutely love the soccer model: play a normal 10th and 11th. After that, silly ball. HR derby swing off, stolen base contest, throw a ball through a tire from 200 feet away, etc.
Seems like an unnecessary shot at Jansen. I think on cumulative numbers alone he ends up getting in
I agree and also, I wonder what the 2-3 most common misperceptions fans hold that *players* notice (e.g. gotta think roster/bullpen mgmt “why did that guy just come in?” looks very different from their end)
But for me, I am really okay with ties and MLB should be as well. I want to see some desperation in the 8th and 9th innings, not hoarding relievers for extras.
I never really saw the argument for ties in MLB, but I can kind of see what you are getting at thinking on it more. Bench players have become less and less useful and so has small ball. But if the game ends in a time after 9 then we would likely see more platoon pinch hits and small ball. Maybe even more baserinning specialists as well.
Yeah I don’t like extra innings in the regular season, while in the playoffs it’s amazing.
In the regular season it is one game out of 162, and the main effect is that it makes teams more cautious with relievers and substitutions. But if we had games end in a tie after 9 I bet teams would absolutely empty out their dugout for pinch hitters and runners starting in the 8th inning. Would add to the sense of urgency rather than take it away.
I always kinda liked how in hockey, both teams get a point for making it to the tie; not 100% sure how to integrate that, but it’d be fun to figure out how
But that incentivizes overtime. Your expectation of points in regulation is 1.0 in a fair game, in overtime it’s 1.5.
Nick Kurtz reminds me of the great TTO hitters of the not too distant past, like Ryan Howard, Chris Davis, and Matt Olson.
Olson has aged better than Howard or Davis did, but when all those guys were on they were incredible. I don’t expect Kurtz to be a star like this in 7 or 8 years. But even if he just had Carlos Peña’s best years packed into his first six years, that’s a very good player!
I think the bull case for him in his later career is someone like Adam Dunn or Kyle Schwarber, I don’t see him taking a route like Delgado or Thome.
I’m surprised relievers are the group most opposed to the Manfred Man since they are the ones protected by it the most.
If a game goes really long, some reliever usually has to pitch multiple innings. This is usually a low leverage guy, because that’s who is left. After the game, the bullpen is spent, but you keep playing every day so a fresh arm needs to be called up. The guy who gets sent down is probably that same low leverage guy whose reward for helping out the club is a short trip to the minors with loss of service time and salary. Especially since he can’t pitch again for a few days after making his longest appearance in two or three years.
Yes, that catch was Trout’s announcement to all of baseball that a star was born. (I believe he robbed Hardy of a HR again later in his career. Poor JJ.)
And to think Trout should have started his career with 5 straight MVP awards.
I have said many times the reason it really can’t be the Manfred Man on 1st base is the too high likelihood that the leadoff batter grounds into a double play. That is untenable IMO.
Just have ties.
I mean, as a fan, I love extra baseball. I even think the weird roster strategies that go along with the occasional 15 inning game are kind of fun and interesting. But I can just go home or turn off the television if I’m too tired or if I have other obligations.
It’s eminently reasonable for players and coaches and staffs to want regular and predictable work hours. So fine, just end regular season games after the 12th or 10th or 9th inning and be done with it.
I don’t understand why the home team is at a disadvantage with the zombie runner. Isn’t it better to bat second, knowing what you need? If the visiting team doesn’t score, for example, you can go all out for that one run with sacrifices and all. But if you know you need 2+, you forgo all that. The team batting first doesn’t know yet whether sacrificing for one run will hold up. What am I missing?
It turns out, just as an empirical result, that the defense has more ability to exploit that knowledge than the offense. Who to pitch around, when to attempt a high risk play to get the lead runner, how to position the fielders etc. It’s just more powerful than knowing if you should bunt.
There was an article about it a couple of months ago. I think by Ben.
Thank you!
What was up with Ryan Howard? Was looking at his statcast numbers for his last two years and he was still posting some insane numbers at the end of his career. 94th and 97th barrel % for 2015 and 2016. 97th % in xWOBAcon both years. 86th and 80th % in xWOBA for the two years. 99th and 90th % LA sweet spot. And then he’s one of the worst hitters in the majors in that span. 53 point gap between xWOBA and wOBA over those two years, and presumably a similar gap over all 5 decline years (2012-2016, 2122 PAs).
Did he just get crushed by the shift? Or was it more generally him being slow?
He was never as valuable as he looked because his defense was always pretty bad and he played in a very hitter friendly park (which we hadn’t quite internalized at that point, he basically debuted at the same time as the stadium).
But he tore his ACL at the end of 2011 and when he came back he looked awful. It could all be a big coincidence and by the time he came back teams had figured out the shift against him, but I think that was the beginning of the end for his legs.
Maybe a Phillies fan has a more accurate recollection.
Achilles, not ACL. His downfall did seem tied to that (although you are correct that he may have been a bit overrated all along), but that still doesn’t really answer the question of why his results didn’t match his statcast.
I’m a Phillies fan and remember clearly, but the facts remain that his Statcast data says he should’ve been much better than he actually was. Did the shift actually cost him 50-60 points of wOBA? I’ve heard plenty of people say the shift ruined his career, and I always took that to be a major exaggeration. But is it true that his decline was more due to the rules of the game changing rather than his ability?
Kurtz stumbled out of the gate, posting a 78 wRC+ with no homers and a 39% K rate in his first 16 games. Once he got the homer monkey off his back, everything has been trending in the right direction. Over the last 55 games, he has a 204 wRC+ and a more manageable 28.6% K rate. Walk rate, Barrel rate, Hard Hit rate, and Z-Contact have gone up, O-Swing and SwStr have done down.
Stud stud stud stud. And stud.
And he’s doing this one year out of college with only 150 professional at bats before coming up to MLB.
He’s learning how to hit professional pitching at the MLB level. It’s insane.