FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: June 13, 2026
On Wednesday night, I sent Michael Baumann a Slack message asking him the first question in today’s mailbag: How many teams have never had a 30/30 season? “Phew,” he said. “That’s a good one.” I told him I’d be answering it, but I thought it was a fun bit of trivia and wanted to know what his guess would be. I was on my way back from my softball game, and I told him I’d look it up as soon as I got home. But Baumann was impatient. He proceeded to run the search himself and answer the question for me.
“Thanks for doing the mailbag for me lol,” I said. He replied, “I had that thought. I just couldn’t help myself.” That’s the type of impulsive, obsessive behavior that drives us to answer your mailbag questions every week. Like you, we love all that is trivial, whimsical, historical, hypothetical, strategic, pedantic, gigantic, nitty, gritty, and silly about baseball. Your passion is our passion. Anyway, because Baumann couldn’t resist, part of the answer to the first question comes from his initial Stathead search. He told me to run my own search, just in case he missed something in his fervor.
We’ll get to the answer to that 30/30 question in a moment. We’ll also answer your questions on the teams with the greatest difference between cumulative player WAR generated and actual team wins, bases-loaded walks, and how to get your baseball fix when you’re short on time. 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.
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.
I do not think I had seen that bit about the Reds issuing 19 bases-loaded walks. That is incredible.
I googled it and discovered that there was a game where the Lowder and Connor Phillips combined to issue *seven consecutive walks*. Four runs from walks alone.
The Reds don’t appear to have an outlier walk rate as a team, but they do have four pitchers with at least ten innings and a walk percentage higher than their strikeout percentage. There are only 17 in MLB this year, so they do have more of them than expected. And two of those guys have pitched more than 20 innings, and when you move the filter up to 20 there are only four players.
So my guess is that there are a lot of cases where there are a couple of runners on and Francona goes to Williamson or Phillips or Jose Franco. And they come and walk two guys within their first three batters faced before Francona is allowed to pull them. Although Burke and Ashcraft also have pretty high walk rates too.
I was at the Lowder/Phillips game as a Reds fan and it was agonizing to watch. At least it was historically agonizing?
Hello Matthew from England,
I started posting in this comment section when I lived in England for a year. Websites like this were one of the ways I could keep up with ball. Mostly, though, I watched (actually radio listened) to day games. I would plan out the week’s schedule of all the 1pm and 4pm USA start times that I could enjoy, and look out for special holidays like Memorial Day where one game was scheduled for noon or earlier.
Of course, even in this case, it helps not to have much social life in the evenings!
I live in the midwest, some of my favorite baseball watching is the evenings when I have to work for a few hours at the laptop (for example catching up on bills or emails), then find an intriguing game to put on the tablet. It helps mark the time (“oh! it’s the 7th inning already, I should wrap this up soon!”) and you learn a bit about other teams, and get exposed to other announcing crews.
Though there is no wrong way to consume baseball watching a whole game does provide more opportunities to pick up on nuances, compared to condensed games and highlights.
Not that I’m an obsessive Cub fan with a lot of issues to deal with at the moment, but didn’t they win 116 in 1906? They need every win at the moment. Even from 110 years ago.
The deal was, you can have Hack Wilson’s 191st RBI, but it’s going to cost you something.
I just want to know what a glizzy is.
I literally came across that term for the first time on Wednesday. I am visiting Colorado and went to the Cubs / Rockies game and I was looking up what people recommended at the stadium to eat and someone was talking about “glizzies “ and I was so confused! I guess it means a hot dog?
And since I am on the topic, I can say the following about my experience.
1) Coors field is nice in the lower bowl as long as you aren’t in right field, where the sun apparently makes it impossible to see. (I was not sitting there, and in fact almost no one was for that reason)
2) The Polidori sausage guys make good food, and the TLC chicken tenders aren’t bad either.
3) The Rockies are bad and there a ton of Cubs fans in Denver. It was probably about half Cubs fans, maybe more. The section we were sitting in was probably 80% Cubs fans. Someone was always cheering no matter what happened.
4) super tight game, it was 1-0 Cubs for most of the game, with the Rockies taking the lead in the 8th, Cubs tying in the ninth, and Rockies winning it in the bottom of the ninth. The Cubs fans were stunned. Never seen a reaction where half the stadium was celebrating and the others were sitting slack jawed staring off in the distance.
I had a similar experience at Coors 20 years ago. Definitely seemed to be a lot more Cubs fans that Rockies fans. There’s also a perception bias — Cubs fan show up in Cubs hats or jerseys and cheer not just every good play but every 300-foot fly ball. Home team fans just show up.
I counted caps as I walked the concourse and it was at least 3:1 Cubs.
Minor correction: While WAR predicted the 1919 Reds to win 79 games, that would not equate to being under .500 if they only played 140 games.
The Reds were underdogs to the Black Sox but maybe not huuuuge dogs.
“Umpires might still subconsciously widen the zone as they did before”. I am certain an overwhelming percentage of umpires are doing their best but I cannot accept that all of this was subconscious. As Exhibit A I would like to put in evidence “The Eric Gregg Game”. Exhibit B is all the games Angel Hernandez worked the plate. He clearly carried a grudge and used his position to flaunt his displeasure. It was common knowledge that each umpire had a different strike zone and the really bad ones have been exposed. The C.B. Bucknor game earlier this year was a clear example of an umpire losing his composure after being embarrassed. The eye test is clearly seeing far fewer egregious calls and the ABS has shrunk the zone which is all for the better. Now just a couple of more one and done challenges to allow for earlier opportunities in the game might be needed.
While that’s interesting, I don’t think Gregg or Hernandez are lining up to the phenomenon being discussed. When a count is 3-0 umps are more likely to call strikes and when it is 0-2 they are more likely to call balls, and what Ben is alluding to is a similar 3-0 effect when bases are loaded. I first recall reading about this 20 years ago, and if I remember right it applies to pretty much every ump. Generally attributed to the idea that deep down, umps don’t want to be the “decision maker”, they want a game outcome.
While that was certainly the case as recently as last year the ABS has ended that practice.The “automatic” strike is no longer being called on 3-0 and it is clear that the umpires realize that it only makes them look bad when a pitch well off the plate is challenged.
I’m that case, I’m not connecting the dots to Eric Gregg.
My point is that Ben said the umpires “subconsciously” would expand the zone and I am certain that Gregg and Hernandez were totally conscious of what they were doing and called their games without regards for the rules. In my opinion these men were worse than incompetent and threatened the integrity of the game.
For the Cardinals, Ray Lankford had a 4 year stretch in which he averaged 27 HR’s and 26.5 SB’s per season – including 2 seasons of 30+ HR’s and 1 season of 30+ SB’s – but things never quite came together for a 30/30 season.
In 1995, he had 25 HR’s and 24 SB’s in 132 games
In 1996, his SB total increased to 35. But he hit only 21 HR’s that year.
In 1997, he had 31 HR’s and 21 SB’s in 133 games.
In 1998, he had 31 HR’s and 26 SB’s, which was the closest that he came to a 30/30 season.
Interesting that four of the six teams without a 30/30 player have been around since at least 1900.