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Sometimes Shohei Ohtani pulls his elbows gently to the left. He stands there at the plate still as a statue, the bat way out in front of him and his arms spread wide like they’re wrapped around an invisible trash can lid. Sometimes, every once in a while, he’ll gently rock the whole package – the elbows, the invisible trash can lid, the handle of the bat, his broad shoulders – to the left, back toward the catcher, the bat head dipping to describe a quiet circle in the air. And then he rocks the whole package to the right again, just as gently, toward the pitcher. It’s a matter of an inch or two. It’s the only sign that he’s human.

Once he’s settled into his batting stance, that little reset, rocking back and then forward like he’s absorbing a wave that no one else on the field is attuned enough to feel, is the only movement Ohtani will make. He doesn’t have a bat waggle. He doesn’t flex and unflex his fingers like Max Muncy. He doesn’t flare his back elbow like Bobby Witt Jr. He doesn’t rock his shoulders like Alex Bregman, lean back like Rowdy Tellez, twitch his hips like Juan Soto, fire his back knee toward the pitcher like Marcus Semien, or test the dirt with his front foot like Cal Raleigh. He’s a mountain, unapproachable, indecipherable. Read the rest of this entry »

You can’t win if you don’t score. The Brewers, who scored exactly one run in each game of their doomed NLCS campaign, learned that the hard way. The Phillies scored eight runs in their single NLDS victory — five of those coming as tack-on runs against mopup relievers — and a total of seven in their three losses.

The Dodgers have a 2.45 ERA this postseason. Among 21st century World Series contestants, that’s tied for the third-best mark with the 2012 Tigers, who had three World Series winners in their rotation. The only pennant winners to allow fewer runs per game were the 2001 Diamondbacks (who had a rather famous 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation) and the 2022 Astros, who threw a combined no-hitter in the World Series. Read the rest of this entry »

This October, the biggest-spending, best-run franchises in baseball have been flexing their muscles. Case in point: The team with the largest TV audience in the game, one with a monopoly on an entire country’s fandom and a huge payroll to match, a team that takes over opposing stadiums on “road trips” — that team is headlining the World Series. There, on the biggest stage in the sport, they’ll take on the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Oh, you thought the Toronto Blue Jays were David facing the Dodgers’ Goliath? Get out of here. The Jays are a Goliath, too. They have a top five payroll, just like the Dodgers. Of the nine hitters, four starters, and three relievers I expect to play the biggest roles for Toronto this series, just four are homegrown. They’ve filled in the gaps with canny additions in free agency and made excellent trades to bolster their roster even further. Their ace and their leadoff hitter were both high-profile free agents. They have literally Max Scherzer, the embodiment of a well-paid veteran.

That’s not to say that Los Angeles is punching up here. The Dodgers’ best players need little introduction. Shohei Ohtani. Mookie Betts. Freddie Freeman. Blake Snell. I could keep writing one-name sentences for quite a while before I ran out of stars to highlight. Sure, all of Canada roots for the Jays, but all of Japan roots for the Dodgers, and Japan is three times as big by population. California is the size of Canada, for that matter, and there are a few Dodgers fans there, too. In fact, the Dodgers are an even bigger Goliath than the Jays, but that doesn’t make Toronto any less of a big-market club. Read the rest of this entry »

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I am not a Mariners fan. I have never been a Mariners fan. I have no intention of becoming a Mariners fan. But the first major league game I ever attended was, in fact, a Mariners game. Here’s what I remember from that game: It took place on July 30, 1998 in the Kingdome. It lasted 17 innings and stretched into the following day. We were sitting on metal bleachers, pretty high up. I knew that some of the big names on the Mariners that year were Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson and Jay Buhner. I spent most, if not all, of the game reading a book because I absolutely did not care about baseball. That’s it. I know that isn’t much, so here’s some photo proof that I was actually there:

I’m the nine-year-old girl on the left and the only one not wearing Mariners gear. Again, I have never been a Mariners fan. The kid next to me is Roger, my 13-year-old brother (yes, that oversized manchild was really only 13, I triple-checked the math). He was the reason we were at the game and the reason I could name a whopping four Mariners. Read the rest of this entry »

Here in Arizona we are now through two weeks of play in the Fall League, with some schedule alterations (a few days of cancellation and a doubleheader makeup effort Tuesday) caused by the impact of tropical moisture coming up through Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Though roughly 60% of the slate remains, there are already some individual players who have moved the scouting needle either for me, or for the many folks here braving Bell Road and walk-prone pitching to sharpen their club’s understanding of these guys. I’ve pushed a bunch of updates to the 2025 Fall League tab on The Board, and below have a Map Key so you can quickly parse the basics of those updates, as well some scouting notes on the players whose grade or projection has changed.

Trend Column Map Key
You’ll notice the “Trend” column on The Board. There are several (mostly self-explanatory) symbols there to give you an idea as to the way a player has looked. The “Up” arrow indicates someone has played well enough, or looks different enough, for me to have upped their FV grade from prior reporting. It’s possible the upward trend will continue throughout the Fall and that the player’s grade increases yet again during offseason org list work. In the cases where the player is struggling so badly as to have earned a “Down” arrow, I haven’t nerfed their FV grade at this time because, historically, there are lots of great players who struggled in the AFL because of fatigue, indifference, or some other reason independent of their talent.

The target “🎯” signifies either players whom I haven’t seen yet, or players who might be Up arrow guys if they reinforce a good early look with more of the same. At a certain point (like a weekish from now) the games I decide to attend on a given day will be dictated entirely by who is left on my target list. The “New” tag indicates players who weren’t on The Board previously, and the Band-Aid “🩹” designation indicates either players whom I haven’t seen, or those who aren’t playing due to injury. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s alright. I’ve run the numbers, and you’re not imagining it. People really are bunting more during the playoffs. You really have been screaming “WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT DROPPING DOWN A BUNT RIGHT NOW?” at your television more often than usual. Your neighbors have noticed. The homeowners association is going to get involved. This is an intervention.

But you’re not wrong. So far, 1.1% of all postseason plate appearances have ended with a bunt. That’s 0.4 percentage points above the regular season mark of 0.7%, an increase of 57%. It’s also the highest postseason bunt rate since 2017. Not only are we seeing more bunts than we did in the regular season, we’re seeing more postseason bunts than we have in years! That 0.4-point gap is the highest we’ve seen since at least 2008.

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Yesterday, I published the first half of my votes for this year’s Fielding Bible awards, which will be released at 2 PM ET today. This morning, I’m going to cover my ballots for the three outfield positions, as well as the pitchers, multi-positional defenders, defensive player of the year, and defensive team of the year. Update: the awards have been handed out. Winners are denoted below by an asterisk.

If you’re curious about the methodology I used to help guide my voting, you can read about it in yesterday’s article, but here’s a bite-sized refresher: I used a weighted blend of DRS, FRV, and DRP (the three flagship public defensive metrics), with the weights based on how well each metric did on reliability and consistency. I created different weights for catcher, first base, the non-first-base infield positions, and the outfield. That gave me an initial rough order. From there, I used my own expertise, both in terms of deeper statistical dives on individual players and the copious amounts of baseball I watched this year, to assemble my final rankings. I deferred to advanced defensive metrics when the gaps were big, but for close calls, I leaned heavily on my own judgment.

That’s the kind of explanation that I have to put in front of any article outlining my ballot; if you don’t know what I’m looking for, my votes wouldn’t make as much sense. With that out of the way, we can get to the good stuff: the actual players who played the defense I’m writing about. So let’s get right to my last seven ballots — it’s a voluminous set of awards! Read the rest of this entry »