FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: October 24, 2026
If last night’s Game 1 was any indication of the action to come, we’re in for a thrilling World Series. The Brewers jumped out to an early lead and barely held on to beat the Rays, 3-2.
The game had plenty of action. The first run scored on a Christian Yelich triple to center field. Jonny DeLuca laid out for it and nearly made a sensational catch. It was a fitting way for a World Series between these two teams to begin. There were two outs at third base, the first when Victor Mesa Jr. was caught stealing to end the top of the fifth, the second in the home half of the frame when Mesa cut down David Hamilton trying to stretch a double. William Contreras caught two Rays trying to steal. Junior Caminero scorched a 112.7-mph double in the fourth inning. Jacob Misiorowski casually and consistently threw 103-mph heaters, but only struck out three batters. The Rays loaded the bases against closer Trevor Megill in the ninth, and grounded into what was initially ruled a game-ending double play. Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash challenged, and the out call at second was overturned after replay revealed that shortstop Cooper Pratt’s foot came off the bag before he received the throw from second baseman Brice Turang. The call at first was confirmed for the second out, but a run scored. Still, the drama was all for naught; Megill took the mound again and struck out DeLuca to end it.
For more on the fun in Game 1, check out Michael Baumann’s story from Milwaukee. He’ll be providing in-person reporting throughout the World Series, so be sure to follow along. And if you haven’t yet joined us for a Members-Only Game Thread during this postseason, I can’t recommend them enough. Conversations we’ve had in those threads inspired two of the questions we’re answering in this week’s mailbag, on the most heroic World Series losers and the fewest number of starts a pitcher would need to win the Cy Young. We’ll get to those questions and more in a moment, 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.
Related recent precedent for the last question: In 2015 the Marlins traded Trevor Williams to the Pirates effectively for pitching coordinator Jim Benedict. The deal was technically for a rookie league pitcher but it was acknowledged to be for Benedict–the pitcher the Pirates sent over appears never to have pitched in the Marlins system.
I’m still a little unclear on one thing — do these trades have to be framed as player-for-player (with a wink and nod agreement about the manager) or are they allowed to be explicit player-for-manager swaps? The Winn-Piniella trade suggests they can be, but it seems like the vast majority involve players on both sides. So maybe teams just have a very particular idea of managerial value and need to use players to balance things out? And why would they need to jump through the extra hoops with Guillen’s contract if that were the case?
The Randy Winn trade did also involve a player going with Piniella–Antonio Perez, who was even a more significant player than Mitchell (he got 500+ PA in the majors as a utility infielder). I don’t know if straight-up player/off-field employee swaps are allowed!
(Perez was one of the pieces going to Seattle in the Ken Griffey Jr. trade, and was later the throw-in to Milton Bradley in the Andre Ethier trade, but the only player he ever got traded for straight up was Jason Romano.)
The Sanguillen-Tanner trade Space mentioned below appears to be a pure player + cash for manager trade. Though still, in that case, it seems like the agreement was Sanguillen + cash in exchange for Oakland to release Tanner from his contract, not to trade his contract per se. It’s surprisingly difficult to get to the bottom of this.
The fewest games a pitcher could start and win the Cy Young award is zero. It has happened 9 times 🙂
Hey Matt, give credit where credit is due. On the relay that nailed Hamilton, Victor Mesa’s throw was only the prelude, it was the perfect throw that Ben Williamson made to get Hamilton by a gnat’s eyelash that earns the accolade.
Did the Fox broadcast ever end up showing the actual throws? I missed the first few pitches of the next half-inning, so they may have shown them then, but they only showed the tag in replays immediately following. With the sound off, I didn’t even know who the relay man was until people started talking about it in the chat.
Art Fletcher’s postseason performance is one of those interesting small sample cases from before the divisional era. A phenomenal defender who committed 12 errors in 25 WS games, including two 3-error games in consecutive seasons (though the second at least didn’t blow the game).
On the SP winning the Cy Young- there is another example that wasn’t mentioned.
In 1987 Detroit picked up Doyle Alexander (for rookie ball pitcher John Smoltz). Alexander made 11 starts, pitched 88 innings, went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA (Which is what mattered in 1987, no WAR or FIP yet).
Detroit ended up coming back in the AL East & winning the division on the last day of the year, on a Frank Tanana 1-0 shut out, Due to the tight race, there was a strong narrative that the Alexander trade pushed them over the top.
He finished 4th in the Cy Young race & got 1 1st place vote. Roger Clemens had a dominant season (8.9 bWAR) & easily won it. Jimmy Key led in ERA & was 2nd.
Tough to compare to modern times (all of the other top 7 finishers had 260+IP). If someone did what Alexander did with current SP workloads of 170-195 innings, they may win it? Maybe 13 starts with 100 innings? I think Dan is pretty dang close.
Jake Arrieta’s second half of 2015 is worthy of theoretical consideration (Baltimore traded him mid-season to the Cubs, but in 2013). In 2015 after the all-star break, Second-Half Arrieta (whom we will call Jake Sharrieta) went 12-1 with a 0.75 ERA in 107.1 innings, two shutouts one of which was a no-hitter. If you count the last three months (July 1 onward) he was 15-1 with a sub-1.00 ERA in 131 innings, and another complete game. He had 8.3 WAR on the year, I don’t know how to find splits but Sharrieta was likely in the 5-6 range in the second half.
Jake Arrieta won the Cy Young over Zach Grienke (who went 19-3 and had a league leading 8.9 WAR and 1.66 ERA) – one assumes Grienke wins that easily over Sharrieta. But in a year with no Grienke he would make it a pretty good race with Kershaw (16-7, 2.13 ERA, 4 CG, 3 SHO, 7.2 WAR, lead league with 232.1 IP and 301 K).
I’d say the most consequential player/manager trade in MLB history is the 1976 Manny Sanguillen for Chuck Tanner deal that sent Tanner to Pittsburgh from Oakland prior to the 1977 season. Tanner would stay in Pittsburgh for 10 seasons, long enough to be the manager of the memorable World Series Champion 1979 “We Are Family” Pirates as well as many other competitive Pirates teams (no full-season losing teams until his last 2 years). I always saw Tanner as the right fellow in charge of that particularly character-filled Pirates squad. Oh yeah – Charles Finley traded Sanguillen back to Pittsburgh after only 1 year in Oakland and Manny was a back-up catcher on that ’79 Pirates squad.
This made me realize that Dwight Evans probably gets real HOF consideration (which he deserves) if Boston somehow wins in 1986.
It’s got to be a lot less. Considering no pitcher has ever thrown two perfect games in their career, if a pitcher had three or four perfect games in the same season (and not a single additional inning), I think they’d be very much in the discussion.
We just glossed over allowing ten runs in a 6-6 game, that’s quite the feat!
Oh wow — this is clearly playoff fatigue on my part. Nice catch. I’ve updated this and issued a correction at the bottom of the mailbag. Thanks!