FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: September 26, 2026
We’ve made it to the final weekend of the regular season, and while all but two of the 12 playoff teams have been determined, two divisions titles and one Wild Card berth are still up for grabs. Both the Guardians and White Sox have already clinched a spot in the American League bracket, but only one game separates them in the standings. Cleveland, the first-place team, needs to win the division outright because Chicago owns the tiebreaker. The stakes are high; the victor earns the second seed in the league, a first-round bye, and home-field advantage in the Division Series, while the loser has to play the entire best-of-three Wild Card Series on the road.
The club that finishes second will face either the Astros or the Rangers, who both lost Friday night and fell to 79-81. There’s a very real chance that AL West winner will become the first playoff team ever to finish a full-length season with a losing record. Houston holds the tiebreaker. This race is emblematic of two things wrong with the current rules: 1) We should not allow losing teams to make the postseason, and 2) ties should be settled by one-game playoffs, not math. As if to provide further support for my second point, over in the National League, the surging Diamondbacks are making a last-gasp bid to overcome the reeling Phillies for the final Wild Card spot. Riding a six-game winning streak into Saturday, Arizona is just one game behind the Phillies, but crucially, the Snakes would get in if they finish with the same record. The two teams split their six regular-season matchups — head-to-head record is the first tiebreaker — but the Diamondbacks have the better intra-divisional record, which is the second tiebreaker. Goofy! It’s still going to be a fun baseball weekend, and the playoffs are sure to be a thrill, but think of how much more excitement there would be if we had not one, not two, but three Game 163s on Monday. What could have been.
Before we get to this week’s mailbag, I have one quick programming note. We’ll still be doing our weekly mailbag during the postseason, but we might move around the specific day it runs depending on the playoff schedule. As we did last year, our plan is to do a mailbag before every postseason round, beginning with the Division Series. Also, in case you missed David Appelman’s announcement from Thursday, this year you will need a FanGraphs Membership to read our postseason coverage. You can find all the details in David’s post, but considering our mailbags are also exclusive to FanGraphs Members, most of you reading this probably won’t notice the change. However, what you will notice and appreciate is the other major part of David’s announcement: This October, we’re committed to having staff at every World Series game, allowing for additional reported work and greater access to players and team personnel, with more in-person coverage throughout the earlier rounds as well. In recent years, we’ve had in-person World Series coverage only when the games were played in a city where one of our writers lived. Now, we’ll be there no matter what. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to both keep reading this mailbag and get access to our postseason coverage, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to 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 reply to Russell is unsigned, but I’m betting it’s Baumann.
If you feel inclined to bet against me, know that this is the 11th use of the word “oubliette” by a FG staff writer (via Google site search). Of the first 10, three were by Baumann and the other seven were by Dan Szymborski.
betcha didn’t know OAA stood for Oubliettes Above Average
Hahahahah it is Baumann! This has been updated. Would be a fun game to leave one name off every week and have people guess the writer.
And even more fun if they start intentionally imitating each other to fool us!
The juggling thing I have seen come into play a few times. Last year’s crazy Sal Frelick play at the wall in the playoffs against the Dodgers was one of them. Muncy hits a ball nearly a HR Frelick tips it with his glove, off the wall and back into his glove. The bases were loaded, none of the runners somehow knew what to do. Teo Hernandez somehow did not score at all from 3rd on a ball hit off the wall.
It happened to the Dodgers one other time recently more conventionally. I think a CF just juggled a ball and Mookie came in to tag right away. The opposing team thought they could appeal to 3rd but it was not allowed. This definitely happened though the details may be off.
One of my kids was an outfielder on the varsity team, and was not interested in propagating his father’s “probably will never happen but…” strategy of intentionally bobbling a fly ball when the game winning / walk off run is on third. We knew the rule, but figured it was arcane enough that a bobble may cause enough confusion to cross up the runner for a second or two. The risks are:
1) whoops, I forgot there were two outs, I tried to get cute and then dropped the ball (nightmare scenario)
2) you maybe had a legitimate shot to throw the runner out but didn’t realize it
3) you know for a fact you had no shot to throw the runner out, but the optics of you bobbling and/or dropping the ball in a critical situation don’t overcome the “brilliance” of the tactic
It would take some guts to try it. I’d like to think if I was coaching a high school or high level travel team I would talk that scenario through with the team. If anything to let them know what to do if they are the runner. But if the whole team was in on it (yelling “third base, third base!” to further confuse the runner) maybe you could pull it off. Seems too random and risky though except for the deepest balls – just make the catch and hope for the best.
The juggling thing came into play this past season in slowpitch. I was tagging up from third, and the right fielder juggled the ball before eventually catching it. I left as soon as the ball hit the glove, but the other team claimed that I had left early vis-à-vis the juggling. Fortunately, the umpire knew the rule (and I did as well, surprisingly).
The only worthwhile move is the Kiermaier Gambit, where the OF presents themselves as if they’re catching the ball in a standard overhead position but at the last moment allows the ball to travel and catches it very low.
Can work two ways; the runner leaves early or the runner has to stop themselves, re-tag, and can’t score.
Oh and it’s awesome when it works.
*Only to be tried if you are actually Kevin Kiermaier.
Ball has little inertia and is not travelling 100mph near the wall. Glove is going to knock it down for sure. We’ve seen the videos where ball hits bird.
…unless Wily Mo Pena hit it
While true, if you don’t catch the ball, the runner is going to get at least a 3B, right?
& as Baumann said, the ball could carom anywhere.
Fun idea, but, I think the reward is not worth the shame you would get.
Works best if batter is standing at the plate admiring his potential homer
Again, also true unless Wily Mo Pena hit it. Then it’s a long single with an off-chance of the throw beating him to first.
Second Henry Porter appearance of the year! He was also mentioned when Jeff Hoffman was running a BABIP over .500, for having the third-worst BABIP of all time with over 20 IP (now that Hoffman’s has regressed back to .356). He also has an appearance in a 2011 article about the best FIP- seasons, which admittedly is pretty much the same stat as WAR/inning, give or take some leverage adjustments. Not bad for a guy who pitched from 1884 to 1889 for the Milwaukee Brewers, Brooklyn Grays, and Kansas City Cowboys!
I guess FIP- isn’t really the same stat as fWAR/IP. Sergio Romo’s 2011 (the subject of the article) is sixth all-time in FIP- but off the top 10 in WAR/IP, at 0.042. Part of it may be that the Negro League pitchers don’t have full-season FIP-s, but even without them the top of the boards are pretty well shuffled; the FIP- top 10 is Porter, Gagne, Kimbrel, Chapman, Diaz, Romo, Miller, deGrom, Yates, Martinez.
I wonder if some of it is pitching WAR getting redistributed to catcher framing. Giants catchers in 2011 had 28.2 framing runs (led by Chris Stewart and Eli Whiteside rather than Posey).
I think the main issue with the “juggling” deal is that the player that DID try that would get castigated from all over the media/social media/retire players for not “playing the right away”, making a travesty of the game, etc.
You’d have every retired player/media person from Brian “Play the Right Way” McCann to Sandy Koufax reacting in pure horror like the player had taken a dump on the Dead Sea Scrolls or set the Ark of the Covenant on fire.
Remember how much grief A-Rod got for yelling at someone trying to catch a pop-up & for trying to slap the ball out of the pitcher’s hand.
This would be worse than that.
“Remember how much grief A-Rod got for yelling at someone trying to catch a pop-up & for trying to slap the ball out of the pitcher’s hand.”
And he deserved every little bit of that.
eff drummers. they think their four-limb independence makes them so special, huh
“ I don’t think anyone would throw his glove at a passing fly ball. “
There is literally no downside to doing this if the ball is definitely going to be a home run.
I often wonder why more soccer defenders don’t just grab a ball about to go into the net when the keeper is out of position. Obviously, you would try to kick it, head it, etc. if you can. But let’s say you are standing on the line, and it’s blasted just to your right, and the only thing you can do is touch it with your hand/arm.
You would get a red card, and the attacking team would get a penalty kick. But if it’s guaranteed of going in if you do nothing, and it’s late in a close or tie game, it’s probably worth it. Penalty kicks are about 70% effective, so the 30% chance would have to be worth it in a big enough game.
There’s even a small chance the refs don’t call it (like the Thierry Henry one on offense), but with replay they would probably catch it.
Noted heel Luis Suarez did this in the 2010 World Cup, and it paid off — Ghana missed the penalty, and 10-man Uruguay advanced after extra time.
Downside is that, if successful, I believe the MLB rule book makes this an automatic triple AND a live ball, so the batter/runner can try for home any way.
So likely worth it to prevent a walk-off & try to keep the winning run at 3rd, but in most scenarios the upside seems minimal. And I’m not sure a visiting fan is giving that glove back if it went over the fence!
As the rule stands, if a thrown glove touches a ball that would have left the park, it is an automatic home run. 5.06(b)(4)(A). I remember seeing a rule book with a cutesy illustration of this when I was a kid.
This mailbag is a high point of my baseball life each week. Clever.
“ties should be settled by one-game playoffs, not math”
Strong disagree though I could see the case if the tie determines making the playoffs vs. staying home rather than seeding. Two gripes
1) Settle it on the field is the ultimate is performative macho, puff out your chest behavior. The Cubs have beaten the Padres 5 of 6 times already; haven’t they already settled it on the field? Given the randomness of baseball, does a single baseball game played on September 28th between two teams that are even over 162 games really settle things, except for procedurally? It may not be as satisfying but they might as well flip a coin to settle ties, which is effectively what they’re doing with math.
2) Given the nature of the post-season schedule, it’s a really harsh penalty to have to play a tie-breaker game which can also make it ugly. In the potential case this year, the Astros and Rangers would burn their top starter in game 163 and then be without him and whoever started game 162 for the wild card round giving an advantage to the WC3. Or worse, the teams realize if you don’t have someone like Jacob deGrom lined up, the optimal strategy is a bullpen game with perhaps your #3 starter throwing a few innings. Just what we all want to see in game 163.
I’ve also been annoyed with the “math shouldn’t decide the playoffs” crowd. The Astros went 9-4 against the Rangers, they earned their tiebreaker!
Is it fair to say that Fangraphs is mostly geared to Fantasy Baseball?
Maybe; not that I’m an arbiter of fairness.
It’s fair to say you can say what you like, you just might be wrong.
RotoGraphs yes, FanGraphs no.
I haven’t played fantasy baseball in 10+ years, at least and fangraphs is my most visited site
I looked at Michael Arroyo’s page and all the predictive tools failed abysmally. Why is that?
Thank you!
What did Don Hoak do to test the rulebook?