FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: February 7, 2026
It’s the Saturday before the Super Bowl, which means it’s the last Saturday before the unofficial start of baseball season! Well, unless you subscribe to Davy Andrews’ philosophy that the baseball season begins when the first grainy cellphone footage of pitchers at their team’s spring training facility hits social media.
This has been an eventful week for the Tigers, who signed Framber Valdez to a three-year, $115 million contract on Wednesday night and then on Thursday were ordered by an arbitrator to pay two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal a $32 million salary for the 2026 season, his final year under club control. That’s a lot of money for Detroit to dole out, but for that price, the Tigers have perhaps the best 1-2 rotation combo in the American League. For one year, I’d say that’s more than worth it. Michael Baumann broke down all the implications of the Skubal decision on Thursday afternoon.
That’s the last we’ll be talking about Skubal and Valdez today. Instead, we’ll be answering your questions about the all-time non-Hall of Famers teams, minor league payrolls, and which players we’d want to see pull a Philip Rivers. Before we do, 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.
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.
The answer to Justin’s question is obviously Bartolo Colon.
I think RA Dickey could still throw for six innings tomorrow if you needed him to. At 51.
If only Rickey were still with us so that Rickey could chime in and say “Rickey, of course!”
The answer with the 500K subscription tier reminds me of the time a writer at Sports Illustrated (Alexander Wolff) got control of a semi-pro basketball franchise.
They did pretty well, but I think that even with the big brains of the FanGraphs staff they would have difficulty attracting enough talent to beat the Rockies. Maybe they could play in the Mexican league.
And that reminds me of “The Only Rule is it has to Work.” Come on FanGraphs subscribers! Surely someone can underwrite the acquisition of an indie league so we can see if Ben Clemens can beat Ben Lindbergh!
Pablo Sandoval may be ineligible due to the fact that he never actually retired. He spent last year hitting .230/.308/.365 for the Staten Island Ferryhawks.
hold up let’s hear more about the “hang out with Dan’s cats” subscription tier
I am with you. My cat is a complete diva, even compared to other cats, so I need an opportunity to actually pet one.
As soon as I read the question about the HOF’ers, I figured Detroit would be on top, pretty much for the reason stated above AND that they have a history of keeping players around for a long time. Without looking it up & not sure of roster composition, here is my best guess on most of the roster:
C- Freehan, Lance Parrish, (if you have a 3rd C, it’s Alex Avila?)
1B- Norm Cash
2B- Sweet Lou, Dick McAuliffe
3B- Fryman
SS- Donie Bush, Billy Rogell
LF- Willie Horton, Higginson
CF-Chet Lemon
RF- Bobby Veach, Gibby
DH- one of Horton/Gibby/Higginson
I really wanted to include Granderson, but, my sense is he just didn’t play there long enough.
SP- Lolich, Bridges, Trout. Add Virgil Trucks..struggling for #5- I’ll go Denny Mclain
RP- John Hiller, Mike Henneman, Aurelio Lopez, Willie Hernandez.
Dan Petry? I’m sure I’m missing some old time guy(s).
Ironically Jack Morris should also be on this list if it wasn’t for a friendly VC.
How did I do?
Most excellent.
But being old school, I think I’d take Jim Northrup over Higginson. FWIW, Granderson tops Higginson on the Tiger leaderboard 20.2 fWAR to 17.8 in barely half the PAs. Granderson was pretty darn good.
Good catch on Northrup, forgot him. I did remember Mickey Stanley and Aurelio Rodriguez but figured they weren’t good enough. (A quick look at showed i was right)
RWAR has Higginson at 23, Granderson at 21.2. Northrup is at 21 also.
Higgy and Northrup are probably similar caliber. Grandy was definitely better than both…plus he’s a better dude
The Tigers have an amazing number of Hall of Very Good players, just in my lifetime alone. They only made two World Series between 1945-2006 but were above .500 most seasons between 1961-1973 and again from 1978-1988. It’s only the Domino’s- early Little Caesar’s ownership seasons that put a losing stain on the franchise.
Mickey Stanley is also a sneaky 80-grade baseball spoonerism
(Grant Brisbee no longer answers my emails)
I got Aurelio Lopez mixed up with Aurelio Rodriguez, and then I learned the grim trivia that there have been three AL/NL players named Aurelio and all three were killed by cars.
[There was also an Aurelio Cortés who played with the Cuban Stars West in the Negro National League.]
A $500 FanGraphs subscription tier that gives you access to Ben Clemens’ couch would be, by far, the most economical way to secure shelter in San Francisco
And really, despite both of us being on our laptops at the kitchen table, I mind my own business enough that Ben wouldn’t hardly know I was there.
I can make my own coffee, I take short showers, and clean up after myself nicely in the kitchen.
Ben is going to be real surprised when he opens his email.
In the team creation, why is ARod on the Yankees and not the Ms, especially given you said Holliday goes to the Rockies because they need him more? The Ms absolutely need ARod more than the Yankees do in this exercise.
Arod has nearly twice the WAR on the Yankees as he does on the Ms, and the Holliday exception doesn’t really apply because there’s no Yankees 3B that come particularly close to Arods value for them
Right, I’d guess off the top of my head (aka, I’m too lazy to pull up B-Ref), the next down for the Yanks would be Nettles?
EDIT: Because I am insufferable, I did look it up and yes, it is Nettles. By B-ref WAR, there’s less than 10 WAR different between the two. After that, it drops off real fast.
Gio Urshela is #17!
C’mon man, can’t you PLEASE give us a link where we can see the rosters for each of the non-HOF teams. Dying to know.
Also, I am not sure that including the folks who were excluded because of PEDs (or gambling for that matter) should be considered here. I mean, I thought we were talking about “Hall of the Very Good” type guys like Nomar, Bernie Williams, or Stieb, not ARod or Rose or Clemens, who had an obvious HOF resumes…
I wonder if just paying the max AAA salary could give a team a competitive advantage. Obviously, the difference in salary is trivial to most people who have had a major league contract, but as presented, we’re comparing making approximately $200,000 a year with making approximately $30,000 a year. For most people, that’s a pretty big difference.
I’m guessing it still wouldn’t help because most of the drafted players are getting signing bonuses and are required to stay with the team that drafted them for years. There probably aren’t that many great players hanging around that have never been drafted or made a major league salary. Still, if there are, that’s a pretty big difference in pay.
not even in my contrived hypothetical do the angels get out of the terrible purgatory of being mid (though im not surprised)
The “maybe” and “possibly” qualifiers make me think Dan just wants our $500.
I’d be more likely to pay that to hang with his cats if I could bring a Skyline Chili 5-way with me.