FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: May 16, 2026
Earlier this week, we crossed the quarter mark of the season, and while 40 games is hardly a large sample size, the round number makes for an easy occasion to reflect on what’s happened thus far and consider how that could impact what’s still to come. My favorite bit of trivia is that it’s been a month since an NL Central team had a losing record. That team, remarkably, was the Cubs, who were last below .500 on the morning of April 15 and are now in first place after rattling off two separate 10-game winning streaks. Meanwhile, both the Brewers and Cardinals have never spent a game below .500. Only three other teams in baseball have not had a losing record this season: the Yankees, Braves, and Dodgers. Notice that quintet includes just one team in the American League, which has been underwhelming overall through the first quarter of the season. Entering play Friday, only five teams in the AL had winning records. In addition to the Yankees, the other four teams, hilariously, are the Rays, Guardians, White Sox, and Athletics. Just as we all expected.
On the individual side of things, many of the usual suspects rank near the top of the offensive leaderboards. There’s Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Schwarber, and Matt Olson all within the top 10 for wRC+, with Olson, Judge, and Alvarez also in the top 10 when sorting by WAR, along with Bobby Witt Jr., the leader. But there are also some unexpected names alongside this cohort. Ben Rice (193 wRC+), Shea Langeliers (179), Mickey Moniak (170), Jordan Walker (166), and Brice Turang (166) have emerged as top-10 hitters so far this season, and while it’s not a shock to see a Dodgers duo in the top 10 for position player WAR, it is a surprise that the two players in the pair are Andy Pages and Max Muncy (both at 2.0 WAR). By his standards, Shohei Ohtani has struggled at the plate — he’s slashing .240/.370/.427 with seven home runs and a 122 wRC+ entering Friday — but he’s offset that by turning into the best pitcher in baseball, at least by ERA. Through seven starts and 44 innings, he has a 0.82 ERA and 1.6 WAR, with the latter figure ranking seventh among major league pitchers. He’s the only pitcher with a top-10 WAR who has thrown fewer than 50 innings. Of the six pitchers above him, pitcher WAR leader Cam Schlittler (2.4) and Davis Martin (1.9 WAR) stand as the most surprising.
So the natural question is this: How much of what we’ve seen so far should we expect to continue? I’d say at least one NL Central team will finish the year below .500, as will the White Sox. I said two weeks ago that I wasn’t buying the Rays and A’s as true contenders, and I stand by that. But I do think Langeliers and Walker can sustain most of their production at the plate, and none of us should doubt Ohtani at this point. Otherwise, I’d rather not prognosticate further. We’ve got a mailbag to get to, and that’s way more fun that anything I have to say about Mickey Moniak. 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.
The question of the most forgettable *current* MLB franchise is going to depend a lot on how old people are but for most people I am guessing it is the Rays.
The recency of the franchise hurts them. But they haven’t won a World Series like the Diamondbacks or Marlins, and they don’t have any Hall of Famers associated with the team like the Rockies (no Wade Boggs doesn’t count). And it doesn’t look like there are any future Hall of Famers who would be associated with them. They don’t even have any MVPs in their team history. (They do have two Cy Young award winners, about what you would expect over a franchise with a 30 year history but still fewer than Justin Verlander).
The anonymity seems to have accelerated in recent years since Friedman left. There was a somewhat-recognizable set of players last decade like with Evan Longoria, David Price, James Shields, Ben Zobrist, and Carl Crawford. From 2016 forward there are only four players who have more than 2000 PAs for the Rays out of 200 in MLB. They zero pitchers who have pitched 600 innings for them in that time frame out of 78 for other single teams. Their innings leader in that time frame is Ryan Yarbrough. Their PA leader is Yandy Diaz. These are actually good players but they are also very anonymous.
This is all super unusual (impressive?) because the team has won a huge number of games. I think they have won 90 games 9 times since 2008. They have made the World Series twice, and the playoffs another 7 times. But they have also not been historically inept recently like the White Sox or garnered huge amounts of negative attention for their stadium woes like the Athletics. How many columns were written about the A’s playing in a minor league stadium last year versus the Rays? Their former future franchise player is currently awaiting trial for a pretty serious crime and very few baseball even remember he exists unless prompted.
Some of this is them being in a small market, and some of this is that they have a reputation for trading players before they reach free agency (or get expensive). Hard to build name recognition that way. They don’t sign recognizable players in free agency, and the ones they do are buy-low opportunities. It’s a small fan base in a division with three kaiju-sized fan bases and the Orioles, which have a ton of history. They are the most anonymous team in MLB.
Even their Cy Young winners are forgettable, which helps your point. I remembered Snell, and he’s gotta be among the most frustrating pitchers in the club of multi-Cy winners, but I totally forgot about David Price winning one due to his decline phase. If you asked me to name a famous Ray, I got Longoria off the top of my head and nothing else. Had to look up to remember Zobrist (one of the most unheralded great players ever, perfect for this thought exercise), and Carl Crawford (who again had a very disappointing back half).
Longoria and Arozarena would have been the only 2 coming to mind for me.
OTOH, them playing in the AL East and winning so much prevents them from being too forgettable. It drives division rivals’ fans crazy when their monied payrolls are losing series to and trailing the Rays in the standings. Third best record since 2008, 7th best since 2016. You say they haven’t garnered “huge amounts of negative attention for their stadium woes” – what? Sternberg was essentially forced to sell the team by his fellow owners for failing to secure a future stadium! Add in the destruction of the Trop forcing them to play in their rival’s minor league stadium and that was certainly a storyline that the most casual fan knew last year.
Considering recent success and results, some stronger choices for most anonymous are ho-hum mediocre/bad teams like the Marlins, As, Rockies, or Twins, who don’t play in big markets, don’t win many games, and don’t make the playoffs (in the Twins case they might prefer they didn’t make it the years they did).
To me, the Twins are the most “anonymous” franchise right now — not bad enough to be historically bad, not good enough to be terribly interesting, one particularly noteworthy player — who spent a long time being noteworthy for not being on the field. They also currently employ Josh Bell, which is the roster equivalent of the shrug emoji.
I guess it depends on how we are defining “forgettable” but I think one way we can answer this is by going to Sporkle. They have a quiz where you are asked to name all 30 MLB teams in 5 minutes. The team that had the fewest percentage of people remembering them? The Royals, who were forgotten by 24% of the respondents. Rounding out the bottom 5: Brewers, Twins, Rockies and Guardians. The NL and AL Central represented 6 of the bottom 7 teams, which isn’t a surprise. In the AL East, the Baltimore Orioles, not the Rays, were surprisingly the most forgotten team at 17%.
I say this with love: I hope Jay Jaffe gets paid by the word.
Also, the Diamondbacks are the most forgettable franchise. Unless I am forgetting somebody more forgettable.
I think this is right. Also, the Royals. Name a Royal from the 00s. You can’t.
Gonna guess Carlos Beltran, Johnny Damon, Mike Sweeney, and then David DeJesus (Beltran’s replacement)? Matt Stairs?
Zack Greinke!
(I would have gotten Sweeney and Beltran but would have forgotten DeJesus and Damon)
Ah yes, Greinke is a huge whiff by me. I had Jose Lima in the back of my mind, but couldn’t quite remember the name (was mentally confusing him with El Presidente).
Beltran was definitely the first one I thought of though I wasn’t 100 percent sure he was still on the Royals in the 00s, but I think the fact that he’s more well known for playing for two other teams strengthens the argument for the Royals topping this list. That 2015 World Series was pretty special, though.
This is 2003 AL ROY award winner Ángel Berroa erasure.
Eh, I think that’s underrating how memorable the Diamondbacks were in their 2001 World Series season and some of the years surrounding it.
Iconic World Series Game 7 with Schilling and Clemens starting, Johnson in relief on 0 days’ rest, and comeback win vs. Rivera.
Peak stretch of success for an inner-circle Hall of Famer (Johnson) was with the Diamondbacks, including 4 consecutive Cy Young awards.
I’m not smart enough to figure out an easy way to construct a list, but I think Johnson and Schilling in 2001 and 2002 must be at or near the top of single-season combined pitching performances from teammates. First and second in NL Cy Young voting both seasons. Combined for 17.6 fWAR/18.9 rWAR in 2001 and 17.4 fWAR/19.3 rWAR in 2002.
Agreed. Unit and Schilling were one of the most memorable pitching duos of all time, and Luis Gonzalez was memorable in a Brady Anderson sort of way.
The D-Backs were super interesting when they first started and became less memorable over time. They didn’t waste much time winning their first World Series but by the late 00’s they were entering a period of obscurity.
They were somewhat memorable during the disastrous LaRussa – Stewart – Gibson era though. Remember that? They would do things like order their pitchers to throw beanballs and for the silliest reasons. Unlike most teams I loved to hate they weren’t that good, so I got a lot of joy watching them lose a lot.
I remember that era for some anti-analytics comments by Dave Stewart, and a trade for Shelby Miller that looked extremely lopsided in the Braves’ favor when it was made (and even worse with the benefit of hindsight).
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/diamondbacks-pay-for-ace-get-shelby-miller/
I think the Marlins are the most forgettable franchise.
I know they’ve won 2 WS, but, other than that they have been mid, at best. & when they do get good players they trade them before they pay them.
& even their 2 WS wins- first was a bunch of FA’s & they broke the team up immediately. 2nd WAS the result of that rebuild, but, even then they slowly broke it up/let guys leave. & that 2003 team was the last playoff team except for the weird COVID year & another where they made it with 84 wins
ZERO hitters have reached 5000 PA’s in 33+ years, only 3 hitters have 20+ fWAR (Stanton, HanRam, Luis Castillo). Only 1 pitcher in team history has 20 fWAR (Josh Johnson) & while they’ve had some good pitchers (Beckett, Burnett, Willis,Nolasco, Penny, Sanchez, etc0, they traded/lost them all before they could become known as Marlins.
Marlins are the correct answer.
José Fernández would have made them unforgettable.
The problem with choosing the Marlins is that they are so unique in their franchise history that they stick out. They’ve been on the verge of trading Sandy Alcantara since 1914. They have some of the coolest uniforms in baseball (including the classic teals!).
Being bad != being forgettable. In fact, I’d say it’s the opposite. True badness breeds familiarity (which is why I wouldn’t have picked the Pirates or Rockies). It’s got to be the Royals or Twins (I lean Twins currently).
The Marlins also have the two WS wins, followed by two dramatic fire sales. I pretty easily remember the great players they traded–Piazza, Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Alou, Conine, Miggy, Beckett, Lowell. And then they had some really unique pitchers like Dontrelle Willis and Livan Hernandez.
“Thank goodness Fire Joe Morgan is defunct.”
-Literally only Michael Baumann and Murray Chass
Less sneaky reason why bunts might look better than you’d think (depending on how Ben did the analysis): Is it possible that it’s because the “swing away” at-bats include situations where a batter put himself in the hole by fouling off a bunt or two before swinging?
Otherwise, jeez, maybe teams should go to all bunting. The ghost of Fire Joe Morgan tormented even worse than by the Yadi and Eckstein tables.
For the record, I don’t think the data shows that you should bunt. I think the data shows that teams are picking good times to bunt – bad hitters, basically. But no, I didn’t filter for fouling off bunts, it was too hard and also given the relative sample sizes, it barely matters to the swing-away at-bats. There are multiple orders of magnitude more swing-away than bunt.
This is off topic but I just checked in on the Cubs / White Sox game. I am pretty sure the amount of damage Murakami is doing to the Cubs is not legal in the state of Illinois.
The governor would pardon his actions.
And the pope will hear his confession.
“Always read the plaque.”
“I’d say at least one NL Central team will finish the year below .500, as will the White Sox.”
The White Sox are getting career years out of ex-Savannah Bananas, .900+ OPS’s out of aging castoff outfielders signed off the street in May, and come from behind walk-off homers from catchers hitting .150.
I know it’s still early, but I’ve watched enough sports in my 30-something years on this planet to recognize a team having a magical season, and I’d be willing to bet a not-insignificant amount of money that the Sox finish over .500.
nolan schanuel is too mid to be bad – but ive seen him hit into two game ending double plays this season
Not gonna lie, I don’t love seeing both Joey Votto & Elly De La Cruz pop up on the least clutch list. What do the Reds have to do to get uncursed?