FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: September 5, 2026
Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Angels unexpectedly announced that longtime owner Arte Moreno had agreed to sell the organization to Stan Kroenke, the icositetra-billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL, the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, the Colorado Avalanche of the NHL, the Colorado Rapids of MLS, the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League, and Arsenal Football Club, both the men’s team of the English Premier League and the women’s team of the Super League. The deal is reportedly for $4 billion, a record price for the sale of a controlling stake in an MLB franchise, surpassing the $3.9 billion sale of the San Diego Padres to Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano earlier this summer.
Forbes estimates Kroenke’s net worth to be $24.3 billion, making him the new wealthiest MLB owner, ahead of Steve Cohen, who’s worth about $23 billion. Ben Clemens wrote about the sale on Wednesday, and I’d encourage you to check it out for everything that you need to know about the Angels under Moreno and the ever-increasing values of MLB franchises. That second part is what I want to stress, especially as it pertains to the seemingly inevitable lockout coming this offseason. Rob Manfred and the 30 team owners are going to push for a salary cap, and to support their case, many of them will both cite the need for competitive balance and claim that baseball is a bad business. When they do, think back on the two record-setting sales from this year and understand the real reason why management has shut down the sport. But let’s not get too caught up in the doom and gloom right now, because the upshot of the sale is the Angels’ future looks a whole lot more promising under Kroenke than it did under Moreno.
That’s the last we’ll talk about the business of baseball today. Instead, in this week’s mailbag, we’ll answer your questions about teams that finished the season below .500 with a positive run differential, the single-game feat most correlated with career success, the pitchers who had the longest careers while pitching their first and last games on the same field, and the ideal hot dog per game ratio. 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.
Redemption for the 1984 Pirates, one of the first teams I vividly remember! I wasn’t a very sporty kid and the ’79 World Series is pretty dim for me; but if you ask me to remember some guys I will bust out Jason Thompson and Jim Morrison for you.
Now that I think about it, my really strong first impression of the PIrates around this time is that my parents had to explain to me what cocaine was. Hm.
Vinnie Antonelli answered the hot dog question in the underrated Goodfellas sequel, My Blue Heaven.
Real men always eat two.
Me after reading the hot dog question: what a ridiculous question. Just get a couple hot dogs.
Me after reading the answer: this is the best question ever sent and I have a hot date with exactly three dogs and three beers.
I…am not a hot dog fan.
I just can’t imagine the situation where the basic stadium hot dog is your best food choice at a game. If you wrap it up in bacon I can see a bunch of them vaulting over other mediocre food options, but even some of those stadiums usually (but not always) have a Polish or Italian Sausage that is better. And that’s before we start diving into the local specialties in the stadium (Ben’s Half-Smoke, Primanti Bros, Lobel’s, etc).
My local team is the Rangers. Since the new shed was built, they’ve added locally owned BBQ and a beloved local Lebanese spot, but until just these last couple years, a hot dog was the best bet.
I have great memories of the loaded Mexican dogs at Petco. I was also once emailed a list, curated by the National Mustard Museum, of the hot dog brands used by every single MLB park. It’s out of date now (2023ish?) but made fascinating reading! …for a hot dog fan, anyway.
Back when it was in Mount Horub, a trip to the Mustard Museum and then over to the Grumpy Troll microbrewery for a Grump Burger and beer was a Saturday well spent. I wonder when I fell off of the Mustard Museum’s mailing list…
Dug out my work computer. As of 2024, here were the hot dog brands used at each park:
Angels: Hoffy
Astros: Texas Chili
A’s: Miller’s (surely this has changed)
Blue Jays: Schneider’s (ha!)
Braves: Ballpark
Brewers: Vienna Beef
Cardinals: Nathan’s
Cubs: Vienna Beef
Diamondbacks: Bar S
Dodgers: Cantella’s
Giants: Hebrew National
Guardians: Sugardale
Mariners: Fletcher’s
Marlins: Nathan’s
Mets: Nathan’s
Nationals: Hebrew National
Orioles: Hofmann
Padres: Hebrew National
Phillies: Hatfield
Pirates: Sugardale
Rangers: Texas Chili
Rays: Nathan’s
Red Sox: Kayem
Reds: Kahn’s
Rockies: Hebrew National
Royals: Vienna Beef
Tigers: Ballpark
Twins: Schweigert
White Sox: Vienna Beef
Yankees: Nathan’s
I am surprised so many places serve Nathan’s and Hebrew National. Although I don’t know if it is “real” Nathan’s or the stuff they licensed out for grocery stores.
I would have guessed it was mostly Vienna Beef or Ballpark. Or some weird historical hot dog that the fans won’t let them change (e.g., the “Dodger Dog”).
But then again I have barely eaten hot dogs in the last 20 years though. Trader Joe’s is pretty good, the rest not so much. So I guess I don’t really know one way or the other.
It’s still Sugardale in Cleveland. They do the “Sugardale Hog Dog Race” every game between Ketchup, Mustard, Onion and (new last season), Spicy. They’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, and it’s unlikely to change any time soon.
Having said that, there are multiple local stands at Progressive Field that serve much better hot dog equivalents than Sugardale. Unless you’re 25 and trying to do eat your weight in hot dogs on Sugardale Dollar Dog night, I’d avoid it altogether.
Bad on my part, but Schneider’s meats in general are very good. American’s further from the border are missing a good hot dog and meat brand in general. I am with sad trombone though …. I would eat an Italian sausage (for me preferably sweet) smothered in onions and peppers in a roll given a choice. This whole conversation makes me hungry! Nice bit of research.
I have been to the National Mustard Museum before. It’s a great little spot if you’re in the area for something else. And if you want to give a gift (maybe just to yourself) their mustard subscription is amazing. They do an incredible job of picking out tasty mustards.
At Guaranteed Rate field, the grilled kosher dogs are good, but they are basically a delivery device for the grilled onions.
When I went to Rate Field I had the polish sausage and that worked out pretty well. I think it also came with onions. May have had an Italian Beef too, not sure.
Word, a hot dog is just a sad brat.
IMO hot dogs are really for kids. I know you don’t usually get top notch brats at the park either but if I am grilling that is the first priority and then maybe some hot Italian sausage. It does seem like most stadiums I go to have a good option somewhere in that vein.
To me, hot dogs only taste good at a ballgame or the turn at the golf course, and literally nowhere else
My go to at home is a grilled charred hot dog with a slice of American cheese underneath and some chili on the top. I could eat 10 of those easy.
Based on the table in the first question, 1950s Reds / Redlegs had a couple of teams that didn’t just outscore their opponents, they outscored them by a lot while running a losing record. By half a run per game.
The manager for those teams was Birdie Tebbets, although he resigned near the end of the 1958 season. It looks like that at least for 1955 Tebbets barely used his bullpen, which might explain some things. They were first in innings pitched by starters and last by relievers. It’s not like they had a ton of complete games either, just innings, which means that he was pulling his pitchers. But I’m guessing he didn’t do many pitching changes with runners in scoring positions or something.
I’m glad the Reds made up for it with a World Series victory shortly after that period of time.
What is the ratio if it has Skyline chili on it?
Zero.
Many thanks to Thomas for sending in my question from the comments two weeks ago, and a big shout out to member Jeremy Fox who in response to my comment stated “Striking out 18 or more batters in a game is a good predictor of a pitcher who will have a good-to-great career. Since 1900, the worst pitcher to do that is probably Ramon Martinez, and he was worth over 20 fWAR for his career.”
He also posited that if you limit it to two career single games, then pitchers who threw two no-hitters would be a solid choice, in case anyone wants to send in a follow up question.
On the offense side, I’d actually think four or five walks in a game is something generally only done by the better players. If you’re getting cute, you might think intentional walks, but teams used to hand those out in a quite silly manner, especially to 8-hole hitters, who obviously usually aren’t the best.
The correct number of hot dogs during a ballgame or anywhere else is 0. There are plenty of better options out there.
The second sentence of the third-to-last paragraph says “Men and woman” when it should read “Men and women.”
I’m 70 and like most people my age and older, always worrying about signs of declining memory. However, I was raised in Detroit, so when you mention “7 times on base”, Cesar Gutierrez and 1970 popped right into my head. Fangraphs has him at -2.4 WAR that year, and -2.6 career. But for one brief moment, in the second half of a doubleheader, he was top of the world.
I don’t think the weight chart listed is correct. Generally, even if you’re 250 pounds, five pints of beer will make you pretty dang tipsy. As a drinker who generally Ubers to games to avoid any trouble, I’d recommend against trying to stay just under the legal limit. That’s a strategy filled with past failures.
The second part of the hot dog question was “Any practical tips to pump those numbers up?” If the ratio is directly tied to achieving a just-under .08 BAC, seems like there are two possible approaches: (1) gain some weight, or (2) defeat the premise of the ratio by investing in better public transit infrastructure.
As a society we’ve pretty clearly chosen option 1, but maybe we can change that if the powers that be understood that the hot dog ratio is at stake.