FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: July 19, 2025
“Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House had a big block of cheese. The block of cheese was huge, over two tons, and it was there for any and all who might be hungry. Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people, so from time to time, he opened his doors to those who wished an audience…”
That’s the late, great John Spencer as Leo McGarry in Season 1, Episode 5 of The West Wing, giving his Big Block of Cheese Day speech to the senior staff in the Roosevelt Room. I like to think of this mailbag as FanGraphs’ own Big Block of Cheese Day. We open things up for you, our readers, to ask whatever questions you have for us, and like Leo, I comb through them and delegate some of them out to our staff to answer. (It’s fun to consider myself Meg’s chief of staff, and in this FanGraphs-as-West Wing analogy, Baumann is definitely Josh Lyman.) And as is the case in the Big Block of Cheese Day episodes, we at FanGraphs always walk away more enlightened baseball fans after answering your questions.
Big Block of Cheese Day came to mind for this mailbag because of a question I received this week that we will get to momentarily. But before then, 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.
Wet Henry Ford.
This was also my primary takeaway from this week’s mailbag.
Great mailbag, Matt! I’m always up for any and all West Wing references!
We love a Big Block of Cheese Day reference
Totally off topic but I cannot stop messing with the Crowdsourced Trade Value app / game / tool / thing. It is so addictive. I am starting to understand why single people I know like those swiping dating apps.
Really interested to see what they do with this concept long-term. I was kind of disappointed when I found out it was only going to stay up until the end of next week.
That’s good they’re taking it down soonish, I don’t think I can stop on my own.
I do think this could work for anything where you can rank things, but it’s absolutely perfect for this one.
Facebook Baseball edition
New slogan should be “It’s Tinder, but for baseball”
So long as it is not Grinder for baseball
Aren’t Tinder & Grinder the same thing?
It would be interesting to keep it up & see how smallish sample sizes affect the rankings.
Witt goes on a heater, does his rating get a bump even though it may only be a hot few weeks instead of a new level of performance?
Same thing with injuries- would they lower the rating?
I stopped at like 515, I was satisfied with my list & didn’t want it to change..but, if it was up indefinitely, I would def keeping coming back as new information came in.
13,000 votes in I am still trying to quit!
Top 10 looks very good though.
Witt is way ahead at 1, over 100 points ahead of Skenes at #2, who is over 100 points higher than a very tightly bunched group of position players under team control and at least one season of elite hitting performance. Raleigh, Tatis, Gunnar, Carroll, James Wood, and Pete Crow-Armstrong are all within 15 points of each other. Gunnar is the closest to free agency and he has 3+ years of team control.
Last two spots are currently Cristopher Sanchez and Logan Webb, but Garrett Crochet and Hunter Brown cycle in occasionally. Brown and Webb are the closest to free agency with 3+ years left
I haven’t seen Judge, Ohtani, Skubal, Wheeler, Acuna, or Spencer Strider in the Top 10 in a very long time but I think I sometimes voted for them over some of the guys in the back part of the Top 10, although not always. Strider was especially tough to choose, he is showing signs of his old form but it’s been rocky. There are a number of other players who were *really* hard to ever vote against (Jose Ramirez, EDLC, Chourio, Julio Rodriguez, Jackson Merrill) which is making me think that there is an absurd amount of talent in MLB under long windows of team control right now. Riley Greene was 13 on last year’s list, is arguably just as valuable as he was last year ( or even more ) due to his sustained performance, and might not even be in the top 20.
The first expansion teams played in 1961 (LA Angels and Washington Senators) and the Mets and Colt-45’s followed suit in 1962.
+1 for the Jim Murray article
I’ve got a hankering to watch The West Wing now.
I got it
If you want trivial quibbles it’s OCSE, not OSCE. The latter is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; which was a bid deal 30 years ago, Perhaps the West Wing was using the OCSE as a subtle parity of the OSCE but I don’t quite get it.
I’ve always wondered why players don’t tag up more like how softball players generally leave the base, which is starting with one foot behind the bag and you step forward in anticipation of when you are allowed to leave (I think it is once the ball leaves the pitchers hand in softball). This would be easier to time and execute and would presumably not run afoul of the rule as it isn’t a running start. I’ve never seen a player try it. I wonder if anyone has ever looked into it?
I don’t watch much softball or orioles games, but in a game against the Mets before the break the Mets broadcast got Laureano as he was ready to tag up from first on a deep, but not too deep ball to right. He then cocked his arm back to launch himself forward when he started running. I had never seen that. He was safe by a hair.
ChatGPT tells me
> Ramon Laureano tagged up from first base during the Mets vs. Orioles game on July 10, 2025. This play occurred in the afternoon portion of a split-admission doubleheader.
Just to take it one step further, the OCSE recommended flipping the map upside down. If you do that then east-central-west would be left-to-right so it’d actually be the correct order.
Regarding the running start rule: I remember this from EW, it was Eddie Stanky
cf. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1813-the-stanky-draft/
Yeah, I remember that from one of the Bill James Historical Abstracts..the one where he ranked the top 100 at each position.
Stanky was a character.
formerly matt w, aren’t you also currently matt w? ; p