FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: May 2, 2026
I don’t pay too much attention to the standings in April. I look at them, of course, but that’s more a matter of routine than a desire to learn something substantial. It’s hard for teams to pull ahead of the pack this early in the season, and I’d rather not read too much into the fact that, say, the banged-up Blue Jays are a few games below .500, or that none of the five teams in the NL Central has a losing record. It takes time for these things to sort themselves out.
And yet, upon checking the standings Friday morning, I found myself pondering the significance of what I saw: specifically, that only three teams in the American League had a winning record. After a dizzying 20 minutes of digging, I lifted my head from my laptop in a daze, wondering how the heck I ended up staring at Baseball Reference’s playoff odds for the 14-18 White Sox. I think seeing the number 16.1% is what snapped me out of my stupor. (For what it’s worth, our Playoff Odds gave the South Siders a 2.2% chance to make the postseason, double their odds on Opening Day.) Anyway, about those three AL clubs above .500, the Yankees (20-11) were expected to be one of the best teams in baseball, so their place atop the standings wasn’t surprising, but the strong starts of the Rays (18-12) and Athletics (17-14) caught me a bit off guard. I thought Tampa Bay was destined for last place when the season began, and our Playoff Odds agreed, projecting the team to finish with 79.7 wins and giving it a 28.9% shot to reach the postseason. Entering May, the Rays have only added about two wins to their median projection (81.9), but they now have a 45.6% chance of making the playoffs. Meanwhile, I believed the A’s would be better this year, but better meant maybe a third-place finish in the AL West and an outside shot to snag the final AL Wild Card spot. Still, I figured they were more likely still a year or two away from true contention. Our preseason Playoff Odds tabbed them for 78 wins and a 21.4% shot at the playoffs. Now, they’re up to a projected 81.3 wins and 43.1% odds. I still don’t think either team will play postseason baseball this year; according to both their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records, the Rays have played more like a .500 team than one that’s on pace to win 97 games, while the A’s simply don’t have enough pitching. Remember, it’s only the start of May. There’s so much more baseball still to be played.
OK, that’s enough about the Rays and A’s in this week’s mailbag. Today, we’ll be answering your questions about how good Shohei Ohtani would be at basketball, whether James Wood is one of the best lefty batters ever at hitting the ball the other way, which batter has the most hits against a pitcher without recording an out, and what would happen if ZiPS forgot about 2020. But before we get to all of that, 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.
Aaron Judge, who, and James Wood? That could use a deep dive all its own.
Also, I’m pretty confident Jordan was better than LeBron on a per-minute or per-game basis. I’m… less confident per-career.
To me, it’s like a Ruth or Judge debate. Not quite, but similar concept. Judge and LeBron play against much better competition and are undeniably superior athletes in their prime. Jordan and Ruth were more dominant in their era (at least in Jordan’s case in terms of winning). So which do you prefer? Very subjective
Don’t let anyone tell you Jordan’s era was tougher because of hand checking and hard fouls. No one back then started lineups with 4 guys over 6’9″ who could all shoot like they do now
I think the big difference between the Ruth vs Judge debate and Lebron vs Jordan debate is that in the 1950s there was a sudden influx of players from the Negro Leagues (and Latin America). It was much faster and led to a steeper increase in competition than international players entering the NBA. To the point that you can’t really even include players pre-integration in any discussions of “the best.”
There was so little competition that the game was unrecognizable. There is no “Ruth vs Judge” because Ruth doesn’t even enter into a discussion of “the best” IMO. 1990s basketball was less competitive to today but unless you’re willing to exclude Jordan out of hand because of his era I think it’s not analogous.
That said, the quality of play is better in the NBA now because the international stars (guys who were born to non-Americans abroad and who grew up outside the US) during Jordan’s peak was maybe 10 players? Hakeem Olajuwon, Dikembe Mutombo, Arvydas Sabonis, Vlade Divac, Drazen Petrovic, Manute Bol, Detlef Schrempf…that’s seven. I think the state of Texas alone has had better international stars on their teams during Lebron’s career (Nowitzki, Wemby, Ginobili, Yao Ming, Tony Parker, Doncic).
Expansion largely offsets the statistical effect of integration. It’s also worth remember that in Ruth’s day, all of this country’s best athletes played baseball rather than being split with football and basketball. And even if you want to ignore all that, we have statistics that allow us to compare Ruth’s performance against his peers. We know that he was better relative to his era than any player has been since then.
Plus Rik Smits, Toni Kukoc, Peja Stojakovic, and Pau Gasol. There were a lot more international players back then than you’re suggesting. You’re also forgetting that Jordan played against Tony Parker and Dirk Nowitzki.
“… in Ruth’s day, all of this country’s best athletes played baseball rather than being split with football and basketball.”
Seems odd to roll that out there without at least noting that a lot of the best baseball players in Ruth’s time weren’t allowed to play in MLB, for [bad] reasons.
(Fangraphs ate my original comment as “spam” for some reason, so I’ll repost in truncated form.)
The biggest difference in the Jordan vs. LeBron and Ruth vs. Judge debates isn’t timing of MLB integration. The far bigger difference is the huge gap in time between the careers of the latter.
Jordan and James were within a season of having overlapping careers (counting Jordan’s late career comeback with the Wizards). They had respective MVP seasons separated by only approximately 10 years. A decent number of players and coaches can comment first-hand on competing against both players in their respective primes.
Ruth and Judge’s careers are separated by 80 years. Even in a hypothetical world where MLB had been integrated in Ruth’s era, a comparison of the two would still require big qualifiers such as wondering how Ruth would handle modern pitching velocity and movement, presumably subject to the assumption that Ruth also would have access to modern player development, video study, etc.
Jordan leads LeBron in both the regular season and playoffs in all three of PER, WS/48, and BPM. More to basketball than that but it helps my confidence level there. Nothing to do with rings plumbers etc.
As I recall, all of those relate directly to what other players are doing at the same time, similarly to WAR. So if players are scoring less efficiently/committing more turnovers etc. then a players stats get better relative to his peers.
For me Jordan vs LeBron is just as simple as two points:
1. Do you value outright scoring prowess more than all around statistical contribution?
2. Do you value a player peaking and being be best player in the world while on the best team in the world and win everything or is it more impressive to be the best player in the world on either bad/suboptimally constructed/injured teams and make consistent deep playoff runs regardless of team quality?
I don’t think there’s a “right” answer. Different people value different skills.
The all-around statistical contribution clearly favors Jordan. All of his defensive statistics are superior to LeBron’s. James is higher in rebounds, but not by much (1.3). His only big lead is in assists (2.1).
That’s exactly the point. The lineups in Jordan’s era had tenacious point guards, bruisers at small forward, and genuine rim protectors at center. It was far, far more difficult to score back then than it is now that everyone is focused on getting the ball back to shoot a three at the other end.
There is simply no question that Michael Jordan was a significantly superior scorer to LeBron James. The stats on that are beyond question. What I don’t think many younger people realize is that Jordan was also a superior defender. Not only did he average half again more steals per game than LeBron, he even averaged more blocks per game than James, all while covering the opponent’s best shooter.
The argument is more that players played hard in Jordan’s era because they could get away with it, but also because they didn’t have the equivalent talent to compete otherwise. It’s not quite as simple as more spacing making it easier for teams to score now as well, because it’s also about player talent increasing.
Sure you can space the floor and have access to the rim that someone like Jordan in the 80s would destroy, but that spacing is created by talent that can punish you for not defending the 3. More players are taking 3s, yet still maintaining an average 3pt % higher than in the 80s or 90s.
Not to mention that this era of where analytics took over the NBA pushing teams to shoot more 3s and creating space isn’t even half of Lebron’s career.