FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: June 28, 2025
On Wednesday afternoon, Paul Skenes and Jacob Misiorowski met in one of the most exciting pitching matchups of the season so far. Skenes is the best pitcher in baseball, while Misiorowski is the hardest-throwing starter. It was must-see TV. Michael Baumann covered the event in the most Baumann way possible, focusing on its hugeness — literally. “As impressed as I was with this display of firepower, awe at the future of pitching was not my primary takeaway. No, watching Skenes and Misiorowski do battle made me feel uneasy,” Baumann wrote. “See, these guys are huge.” He followed those words up with one of my favorite paragraphs in the illustrious annals of baseball writing:
This is too big. Both of them. The modern baseball field was designed for Scots-Irish immigrants with bad childhood nutrition and kidney disease. When 5-foot-11 Honus Wagner was the biggest, strongest player in the league. If you told the founding fathers of baseball that one day ballplayers would get so big they couldn’t borrow pants from Dave Bautista… well first of all, I guess you’d have to explain Dave Bautista to Abner Doubleday and Alexander Cartwright. You get my point.
I’m not going to write about the Skenes-Misiorowski matchup. What more could I possibly add? Instead, I will begin this week’s mailbag by answering a question about Misiorowski’s earth-shattering velocity. Before I do, 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 next week’s 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 would love to see Davy Andrews take another look at the Kwan, Perdomo, Robles problem (linked above) now that we have MiLB Statcast data available.
Consider players like Matt Shaw. Shaw’s MLB #: 136 events, AEV 82.7 (1st percentile), HH% 25% (2nd percentile). Shaw’s AAA #: 181 events, AEV about 89, HH% around 40%, both near MLB average. Shaw is half way through one MLB season and his numbers may change, but my question is more about defining his “problem”. With MLB data alone, we might conclude Shaw’s problem is not hitting the ball hard enough. Considering AAA data, perhaps the primary problem is a struggle against MLB pitching. The two problems are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps the problem also relates to the balls that aren’t hit hard (as in Kwan vs Perdomo, from the article). I am wondering to what degree the AAA data might help to define the problem (or not).
Speaking of EV, when will EV90 be populated on the hitting leaderboards? I recently noticed it was added into the statcast section but is empty cells. Will it be put on player pages as well?
Really enjoyed the analysis by Matt on Misiorowski and perceived velocity. Whatever the Brewers are doing with pitching draft targets and development, I love it. Crazy that Misiorowski I say that and interestingly.
I’m curious if we will see teams targeting tall pitchers more frequently to let their velo play up. At least one NL Central team seems to be zagging instead of zigging though. The Cardinals overwhelming targeted short players for both pitching and hitters in the draft in 24. We will see if that continues and if they think they have found a market inefficiency.
The real magic is in the extension, but it’s more uncomfortable when it comes out of a pitcher that is shorter or taller than the norm. It’s easy to explain how Misiorowski or Glasnow make hitters uncomfortable, but so does Freddy Peralta. The ball is just coming out of a place that hitters have trouble adjusting to.
Love mailbags. This along with Tim’s at MLB Trade Rumors, are the highlight of baseball coverage…thanks!
Minor note but Skubal is pretty clearly the best pitcher in baseball not Skenes, and while Skenes is great, I don’t think it’s particularly close right now between the two