Author Archive: Jay Jaffe

Induction Day in Cooperstown next summer could be a Giant affair, or at least have a very Bay Area-oriented theme. On Monday, the Hall of Fame announced its slate of eight candidates for the 2027 Contemporary Baseball Managers/Umpires/Executives ballot, dedicated to non-player candidates who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present. The group is headlined by a pair of first-time eligible managers with ties to San Francisco, namely Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy, plus the general manager who oversaw their most successful seasons in the Giants dugout, Brian Sabean. Also on the ballot is another Bay Area general manager, Sandy Alderson, who built an A’s team that won three straight pennants and a World Series. On December 6 we’ll find out if any of them will be inducted next July 25, very possibly alongside former Giants superstar (and current president of baseball operations) Buster Posey, the top newcomer on the BBWAA ballot, which will be released on November 16.

There’s plenty more to digest regarding this ballot, which also includes two other World Series-winning managers in Joe Maddon and Lou Piniella, maverick owner Ted Turner, and pioneering executive Bill White. Piniella and White are the top two returnees from the 2024 slate that elected Jim Leyland. Piniella has missed by one vote in each of his past two appearances counting the 2019 Today’s Game Era Committee ballot from the previous four-committee format. White (who also played for the Giants, though it’s each candidate’s post-playing career that’s the focus here) missed by two votes on the 2024 ballot but was the recipient of this year’s Buck O’Neil Award, given once every three years to “an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society, broadened the game’s appeal, and whose character, integrity and dignity are comparable to the qualities exhibited by O’Neil.” Of the eight candidates, Turner is the only one who is deceased; he died on May 6 at age 87.

I’ll have more to say about each of those candidates below and in the coming weeks, but first, some nuts and bolts. The eight candidates will be voted on by a 16-member committee of Hall of Famers, executives, and writer/historians that was appointed by the Hall’s board of directors. They will meet and discuss the candidates in person in San Diego on December 6, where the Winter Meetings would be held if not for the impending lockout by the owners. Each voter can include up to three candidates on his or her ballot (down from four in the previous 10-candidate format, which ran through the aforementioned 2022 ballots). Election to the Hall requires 75%, meaning votes from 12 of the 16 panelists. The results of the voting will be announced live on MLB Network’s MLB Tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET, and any candidate elected will be inducted into the Hall next July 25 in Cooperstown along with anyone elected from the upcoming BBWAA ballot. Read the rest of this entry »

At the outset of the World Series, I noted that the Brewers had reached the Fall Classic for the first time in 44 years despite not getting much length from their starting pitchers. Through the National League Championship Series, Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser and company averaged just under four innings per turn, an average that didn’t clear that low bar until The Miz delivered 5 2/3 shutout innings in Wednesday night’s World Series clincher. Along with the timely hitting of Jackson Chourio, William Contreras, and Cooper Pratt, a major key to Milwaukee’s dominant postseason run was its bullpen. Even in the team’s Game 4 defeat, Aaron Ashby set a postseason record by extending his streak of scoreless innings to 18, and as a group, Brewers relievers delivered one of the best combined showings in postseason history.

I dug into Ashby’s performance last week, noting the way his over-the-top delivery and high velocity combine to create unfamiliar angles and elite vertical movement for his repertoire, giving both lefties and righties fits. The 28-year-old lefty was even more dominant in his three World Series appearances:

That’s a 33.3% strikeout rate and a 5.0% walk rate overall, and a 50.0% strikeout rate (with no walks) against the Rays. Ashby threw 1 2/3 innings in Game 1, coming on in relief of Abner Uribe with one out in the seventh and setting down all five batters he faced. He added another 1 2/3 innings in Game 2, this time relieving Uribe with one out in the eighth. Though he had to work around a leadoff double by Jonny DeLuca to start the ninth (the only baserunner he allowed all series), he closed out the game, becoming the 10th pitcher with at least three saves of longer than three outs in a single Wild Card era postseason — or the 15th, depending upon how many times you want to count Mariano Rivera. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifty-seven years after their lone season as the Seattle Pilots, 56 after a used car salesman brought them to Milwaukee at the end of spring training, and 44 after they won their first pennant, the Milwaukee Brewers are world champions. After nearly completing a four-game sweep on Tuesday night before the Rays rallied in the 12th inning, they finished the job on Wednesday night with a 4-1 victory.

There’s plenty to be said about the individual performances of this year’s champions. William Contreras won World Series MVP honors by hitting .381/.435/.429, throwing out four would-be basestealers, and winning 10 out of 13 ABS challenges. Jackson Chourio gave Contreras a run for the money in the MVP race, tying a 98-year-old record held by Babe Ruth by collecting 10 hits over the first four games of the World Series, and leading all players with 11 hits and a .458 batting average. Cooper Pratt collected six straight hits in Games 4 and 5, batting .421/.455/.684 while leading all players in slugging percentage and RBI (seven). Aaron Ashby set a postseason reliever record with 18 consecutive scoreless innings, and allowed just one baserunner in 5.1 World Series innings while striking out nine. Likely National League Cy Young winner Jacob Misiorowski, seemingly low on gas during the first two rounds of the postseason, bookended the World Series with a pair of strong starts totaling 10.2 innings while allowing just one run. Speaking of bookends, Chourio, Contreras, and reliever Antonio Senzatela were all members of Team Venezuela’s World Baseball Classic-winning squad, joining Alex Bregman and Luke Gregerson of the 2017 Astros and Team USA as the only players to win both championships in the same calendar year. Read the rest of this entry »

Liam Hicks had an adventurous night during Game 2 of the World Series in Milwaukee. In the first inning, after the Rays had already plated two runs against Brewers starter Logan Henderson, Hicks clubbed a two-run homer — the first homer of this year’s World Series, in fact — to extend the lead to 4-0. In the sixth inning, after that lead had been trimmed to a single run, he was thrown out at the plate while trying to score, a play that loomed particularly large in what became a 5-4 defeat that put the Rays in a two-games-to-none series hole. While Hicks has scuffled at the plate for much of the postseason, he’s come up big a few times, and has had a substantial impact since being acquired from the Marlins in a deadline-day trade.

By the time Hicks batted for the first time on Saturday night, the 24-year-old Henderson had already thrown 23 pitches. Yandy Díaz led off, and after battling for seven pitches, he reached second base when shortstop Cooper Pratt threw away a fairly routine groundball. He scored on a Chandler Simpson single, and after Simpson stole second, Junior Caminero worked the count full and then fouled off a couple of pitches before singling home Simpson. Up came Hicks, and after he fouled off a high four-seamer, Henderson left an 87.8-mph cutter in the middle of the plate. Hicks connected, launching the ball 411 feet to right center for a two-run homer.

With that, Hicks — who was born and raised in Toronto, rooting for Blue Jays teams that featured Russell Martin — became just the fourth Canadian-born player to homer in a World Series, after the Yankees’ George Selkirk (Games 1 and 5 in 1936), the Cardinals’ Larry Walker (Games 1 and 3 in 2004), and the Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Games 4 and 5 in 2025). No pressure to hit another, eh? Read the rest of this entry »

The American League Championship Series between the Rays and Guardians was a study in contrasts when it came to starting pitching, particularly as the series extended. Tampa Bay’s starters lasted five or more innings in all but one of the six games, with Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta combining for three starts of at least six innings; the former went seven innings and the latter 5 1/3 in the the final two games. Cleveland’s starters reached the five-inning mark just twice and never went deeper than that; over the final three games, the team’s starters — ace Parker Messick and reliever Shawn Armstrong, who was deputized to open Games 4 and 6 — totaled just four innings. Given that imbalance, it was hardly a surprise that the Rays rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win those three and take the series.

The World Series might present a similar contrast. The Rays and the Yankees are the only teams whose starters have averaged at least five innings per turn during this postseason, and Tampa Bay knocked off New York in a Division Series sweep earlier this month. Meanwhile, the Brewers are one of five teams whose starters have averaged less than four innings per turn; only twice did a Milwaukee starter even last five innings, with Logan Henderson reaching that mark in Game 2 of the NLDS against the Padres and Robert Gasser doing so in Game 3 of the NLCS against the Dodgers. Jacob Misiorowski — the likely NL Cy Young winner, who even before the playoffs had already exceeded his total workload from last year by more than 30 innings — burned through 88 pitches to complete four innings in his NLDS start and 94 to go 4 1/3 in his NLCS start. For the Brewers and Rays, those divergent approaches have worked. Tampa Bay went a combined 7-2 in the ALDS and ALCS; Milwaukee, 7-1 in the NLDS and NLCS.

After a season in which he ranked third in the AL in FIP (2.81) and WAR (5.0) and fourth in ERA (2.67), Rasmussen began his postseason by no-hitting the Yankees for 7 2/3 innings in the Division Series opener. In three starts totaling 21 innings, he’s delivered a 1.29 ERA and a 2.58 FIP. Peralta, who struggled during his four months as a Met before righting himself somewhat as a Ray following a deadline deal, has put up a 1.13 ERA and a 3.72 FIP in 16 innings as a starter, on top of which he added two-thirds of an inning out of the bullpen in ALCS Game 4; that cherry on top of his two strong starts helped him win series MVP honors. While their third and fourth starters, Nick Martinez and Griffin Jax, haven’t been as effective, the Rays’ postseason rotation ERA is good enough to crack the top 10 dating back to the start of division play in 1969:

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Runs are hard to come by during the postseason, in part because of the outsized impact of cooler weather and overpowering relief pitching. So far this fall, no pitcher has done a better job of keeping runs off the board than Aaron Ashby. Working in a multi-inning role that recalls a bygone era of bullpen firemen, the 28-year-old lefty has delivered 12 1/3 scoreless innings for the Brewers thus far while playing a central role in both their Division Series win over the Padres and their Championship Series victory over the Dodgers — so much so that he assembled a reasonable NLCS MVP case, though the award went to Jake Bauers instead.

Ashby has pitched in six of Milwaukee’s eight playoff games, coincidentally Games 1, 2, and 4 of both aforementioned series. He’s thrown more innings than any other Brewer this postseason; by comparison, starters Robert Gasser and Logan Henderson have each totaled nine, and Jacob Misiorowski 8 1/3. Four of Ashby’s six outings have been hitless, and all but one has lasted at least 1 2/3 innings, a luxury afforded by the October schedule’s extra days off and his own efficiency and stamina.

“The way this guy loves to play, loves to throw every day. He keeps on wanting the ball,” said pitching coordinator Jim Henderson of Ashby in the wake of the NLCS clincher. “He’s trained himself for it. Every single day he plays catch, he gives it a full effort. He doesn’t save bullets. He creates them.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Tampa Bay Rays are one win away from their third trip to the World Series. After pulling away from the Cleveland Guardians late in Game 4 for a 7-3 victory, the Rays scored a run in each of the first three innings of Game 5. While they left six men on base over that span, they forced Guardians ace Parker Messick to work so hard that he lasted just two innings, and because the game remained within reach, Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt called upon four of his best relievers to record four outs or more. Meanwhile, Drew Rasmussen stifled the Guardians, holding them to one run on four hits over seven innings, and a trio of relievers shut the door for a 3-1 victory and a three-games-to-two series lead. The series now heads back to St. Petersburg, and because the travel day was erased by Friday night’s rainout, the Rays will have the opportunity to clinch the pennant at home on Monday night.

For as great a rookie season as Messick had, the 25-year-old lefty has been anything but dominant during the postseason. He lasted five innings in just one of his three previous starts while putting up a 4.13 FIP and 5.25 xERA to go with a comparatively tidy 3.09 ERA in 11.2 innings. If a 15.1% walk rate, more than double his regular season mark of 6.6%, has been the primary culprit, his previous workload may be a contributing factor as well. Messick ranked fourth in the American League with 186.1 innings — the most of any rookie since 2012 — and with his postseason work prior to Sunday, he had pushed his odometer to 198 frames, up from a combined 138.1 innings between Triple-A and the majors in 2025.

After pairing Messick with backup catcher Austin Hedges for all but one of his starts in 2026 — David Fry caught the first three innings of his September 27 outing — Vogt called upon Patrick Bailey instead… on the basis of his offense. That’s an odd thing to say about a catcher with a career 75 wRC+, and an anemic .146/.213/.183 line when he was traded from the Giants in May, but the 27-year-old backstop has been a credible threat at the plate since joining the Guardians, and he entered Sunday having hit .333/.379/.556 (163 wRC+) during the postseason, with a homer and a single off Rasmussen in Game 1. Said Vogt before the game, “With the way Patty is swinging the bat, [I] just wanted to keep his bat in the lineup, and you know, obviously there is some risk. There’s some concern with Patty never having caught Parker. But you know what? If I’m going to trust two human beings to go out and navigate a game, it’s Parker and Patty.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a rough season for José Ramírez. After a sluggish start, the 34-year-old third baseman suffered a fractured left hamate that required surgery and knocked him out of action for nearly six weeks, then struggled so mightily upon returning that it took him nearly two months to barrel a ball. His bat showed some life in the second half of September as he helped the Guardians overtake the White Sox in the AL Central race, and with his team pushed to the brink of elimination in the Division Series against those same White Sox, he collected four extra-base hits and drove in eight runs over the final three games, most notably golfing a two-run homer off Sean Burke to provide all the scoring Cleveland would need in Game 5. After more heroics in the ALCS opener against the Rays, however, his costly error on Tuesday night helped Tampa Bay even the series.

Ramírez made his error during the fourth inning of a scoreless game, and while it was the only play scored an error, it was hardly the Guardians’ only miscue in that frame. After Parker Messick issued a leadoff walk to Junior Caminero, Victor Mesa Jr. hit a potential double-play grounder to second baseman Travis Bazzana, who tossed to shortstop Brayan Rocchio for the force out. Rocchio’s throw at first base was high enough to pull Nathaniel Lowe off the bag, and while Mesa was initially called out, the call was overturned when the Rays challenged it (the Rays also challenged the out at second, but that was upheld).

After Messick struck out Jonny DeLuca, Chandler Simpson hit a high chopper to Rocchio, who unhesitatingly fired to first base. Simpson beat the throw, while Mesa motored around second base and alertly took third because Ramírez had ranged so far to his left. Ben Williamson then hit a grounder whose second hop took an odd bounce off the edge of the turf in front of Ramírez; instead of winding up in his glove, it squirted through his legs and into left field as Mesa scored the game’s first run, with Simpson taking third and Williamson second. Liam Hicks plated them both on a single into right-center, giving the Rays a 3-0 lead. The three unearned runs were all the scoring the Rays would need in a 3-1 victory. Read the rest of this entry »

A year ago, even eight months ago, it would have been difficult to envision Victor Mesa Jr. emerging as a postseason hero for the Rays.

The son of a legendary Cuban outfielder and manager, he made his major league debut with the Marlins in 2025, but even by then, his standing as a prospect had faded due to his long swing and his aggressive approach. Designated for assignment by Miami before camps opened in February to make room for a waiver-wire reliever, Mesa was traded to the Rays and began the 2026 season in Triple-A.

Yet by June, the lefty-swinging 24-year-old (now 25) had carved out a platoon role with the big club thanks to his speed and defense. His role expanded as he far outdid his power projections, demonstrated an ability to hit same-side pitching, and played outstanding defense. In Game 3 of the Division Series, he administered the decisive blow against the Yankees, a towering two-run homer on lefty Max Fried’s final pitch to give the Rays a 4-2 lead. His adventurous night didn’t end there — in left field, he attempted to catch Anthony Volpe’s sixth-inning homer-that-wasn’t, which was ultimately ruled a run-scoring double because of fan interference — but the Rays held on to complete the sweep and advance to the ALCS against the Guardians.

“At the beginning of the year, I started being designated for assignment and look at me now,” a beaming, champagne-soaked Mesa said in the aftermath of the Wild Card Series victory.

“Victor Mesa Jr. is a very talented player both sides of the ball,” manager Kevin Cash said that night. “And when we got him up here and he found comfort in playing in that role that he was in basically every day, he really lengthened out our lineup.” Read the rest of this entry »