FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: March 14, 2026
I’ve covered Red October playoff games in Philadelphia, and white out football games at Penn State. I’ve also attended professional games in Panama and covered plenty of Little League World Series games, giving me a taste of how different cultures enjoy baseball. But I have never witnessed a sporting event quite like Wednesday night’s World Baseball Classic game between the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
It wasn’t just the chanting, the instruments blaring, or the dancing that made for such an exhilarating experience; all of those things were also a part of the previous Pool D games played by the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. I know what passionate fandom looks and sounds like, and this was something altogether different. Venezuelan and Dominican fans don’t merely watch baseball; they participate in it. It’s kinetic, and when the force of their fandom collided under the closed roof of loanDepot park, it created a unique, unforgettable energy. I hope all of you reading this can experience something like it at some point in your life, because getting to feel that power pulsing through the stadium is one of the great privileges of this job.
That’s the last we’ll talk about the WBC in this week’s mailbag. Instead, we’ll be answering your questions on how baseball would change if it were played exclusively left-handed, how often we might see an Ultimate ABS Challenge, and whether the 2026 Angels roster would’ve been a playoff team in 2024. 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.
That question about rewinding the clock on the Angels is interesting. A list of teams who provided the most PAs to players over the age of 30 last year:
Dodgers (4993)
Phillies (3885)
Mets (3450)
Padres (3350)
Mariners (3190)
Rangers (3023)
This list is kind of dull because this is a group of teams that had most of these players 3 years ago and they were mostly really, really good teams back then. The exception is the Mariners, and it’s not clear that rewinding the clock to 2023 would have helped them that much, especially since the pitching was weaker.
Now if you could assemble a team of free agents this year based on what they did in 2022 or 2023, you could have a pretty good one. Especially 2022.
For this exercise let’s only pick players 34 or older this free agency period–this means we’re taking guys who have likely already peaked in 2022, so no Dylan Cease or Zac Gallen or Framber Valdez. I’ll put my team in a reply.