Over the 30-plus years that I’ve been following baseball, it seems like a collection of newfangled stats comes out every couple years. WAR, DiPS, wOBA, UZR, exit velocity, spin rate — America’s most rigorously empiricized sport has gone from scribblings in Henry Chadwick’s notebook to having more inscrutable acronyms than the Department of Defense.

My default position on new stats is one of interested skepticism. As a public-facing analyst, I don’t want to stake my reputation on a new metric that might still have serious flaws. It usually takes months or even years for people smarter than me — or at least, people who did more than barely pass their graduate statistics class — to iron out the kinks and figure out how to read and utilize the trendy new stats.

One example: I waited for ages for Justin Lawrence to be good. Read the rest of this entry »

We haven’t even reached May, but on Sunday, Elly De La Cruz made what will certainly go down as one of the best defensive plays of the 2025 season. In the bottom of the second inning in Baltimore, Reds opener Brent Suter clipped the outside corner with a slider and Jackson Holliday fought it off, sending a weak line drive up the middle off the end of his bat. The ball was ticketed for center field, but nobody told De La Cruz, who ranged to his left and did his best Superman impression. He seemed to hang in the air forever as he corralled what would have been the game-tying hit.

At this point, it’s possible that Superman is going to start doing an Elly De La Cruz impression. Truly, on this Easter Sunday, Elly was risen. De La Cruz got full extension, utilizing every inch of his 6-foot-5 frame. He sacrificed his face in the process, selling out for the catch so completely that he smacked his chin and the brim of his hat into the dirt when he finally landed. When the ball found leather, the Orioles fans who had started cheering in anticipation of an RBI single instead found their voices rising in both pitch and decibel level as their disparate vocalizations merged into one united “Awww!”

I spent a significant portion of my Monday morning watching this play on repeat, then searching for as many angles of it as I could. I wanted to see the catch, but even more than that, I wanted to see the reactions. You know how when you’ve watched your favorite movie enough times, you no longer need to keep your eyes on the focus of the frame at any given moment? You start to notice all the subtle things going on in the background, the way one extra covers their face to keep from laughing, or a tiny visual joke on a blackboard. After I’d marveled at De La Cruz’s athleticism until my eyes lost the ability to focus, I started watching everyone else marvel at it. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Scherzer has had a Hall of Fame-quality career. Now with the Toronto Blue Jays, the 40-year-old right-hander has accumulated 73.0 WAR to go with 216 wins and a 133 ERA+ across his 18 big league seasons. Moreover, his 3,408 strikeouts rank 11th all time, and his résumé also includes three Cy Young Awards, eight All-Star selections, and a pair of World Series rings. Writing about his Cooperstown chances last summer, my esteemed colleague Jay Jaffe called Scherzer “a lock for election.”

Let’s turn the clock back to 2007, when Scherzer made his professional debut that summer a full year after he was drafted 11th overall by the Arizona Diamondbacks out of the University of Missouri. The following spring, Scherzer was ranked fourth in the D-backs system when Baseball America’s 2008 Prospect Handbook was published. Rankings and in-depth scouting reports weren’t yet a thing here at FanGraphs.

What did Scherzer’s 2008 Baseball America scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think of it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what BA’s Will Lingo wrote and asked Scherzer to respond to it.

———

“The 11th overall pick in 2006, Scherzer pitched for the independent Fort Worth Cats and held out before he would have reentered the draft pool.”

“That’s right,” replied Scherzer. “Now that you think about it, the rules have changed since then, but when I got drafted by the Diamondbacks… actually, let’s go back to pre-draft. That season, my junior year, I slammed a door on my finger. I tried to pitch through it and developed biceps tendonitis. That scared off a lot of teams.

“I came back at the end of the year and pitched well, so I went into the draft saying that I was still looking for a top-college-pitcher contract. That was when you could still sign major league contracts out of the draft, and it’s what I told teams I was looking for. Arizona drafted me under those pretenses, but then tried to tell me I was hurt. I was like, ‘You guys literally just saw me at the Big 12 tournament. Everything is back. I’m good.’ I let them know that I wasn’t going to take 11th-pick slot; I was looking for a major league contract, which is what the top college pitchers in the past few years had gotten. Read the rest of this entry »

As we enter the third week of April, we’re getting to the point where the early-season mirages are beginning to fade. Some of the surprising hot starts are sputtering out and reality is setting in. I’m trying out a bit of a different format for power rankings today, with shorter blurbs for every team that are more focused on what happened over the past week.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

…

The Dodgers had a great week; they swept the Rockies at home and then took two of three from the Rangers on the road. They’re still dealing with a number of issues in their rotation — Tyler Glasnow left his start on Sunday early, though it sounds like he avoided a serious injury — but there’s good news on the horizon, too. Clayton Kershaw started a rehab assignment last week, Tony Gonsolin is nearing the end of his rehab, and Blake Snell threw a pain-free bullpen session over the weekend. And all those injury concerns can be glossed over a bit because Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been absolutely dominant; he’s allowed just four runs total across his first five starts.

The Mets swept the Cardinals in four games over the weekend and now find themselves leading the Phillies by two games in the NL East standings. Francisco Lindor’s dramatics and Pete Alonso’s hot bat have covered for a slowish start from Juan Soto — if you want to call a .359 wOBA “slow.” They have some issues to sort out in center field, but the impending return of Jeff McNeil should help provide some depth and versatility to the lineup.

The Padres managed to eke out a win against the Astros on Sunday night to avoid getting swept in their tightly contested weekend series. They’ll have to figure out how to keep their early-season hot streak going without several key players; Jake Cronenworth and Jackson Merrill have been out for about two weeks, and they were joined on the IL last week by outfielders Brandon Lockridge and Jason Heyward. Fortunately, it seems that Luis Arraez avoided a serious injury on Sunday night, when he had to be taken to the hospital after a scary collision with Mauricio Dubón at first base that initially had left the three-time batting champion motionless. He was released from the hospital after undergoing tests and is expected to rejoin the team on Monday, though it’s unclear how soon he’ll be cleared to play.

The Yankees jumped to the top of the AL East with a 6-1 week after sweeping the Royals and winning a four-game series over the Rays. Max Fried was brilliant in his no-hit bid that wasn’t on Sunday and has really stabilized a rotation that lost both Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil during the spring.

It was a ho-hum 3-3 week for the Cubs, but they received some bad news on the injury front: Justin Steele will miss the rest of the season after undergoing elbow surgery on Friday. They proved their resilience in an absolutely wild Friday night slugfest against the Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field, where 21 runs were scored after the sixth inning in an eventual 13-11 Chicago victory.

The Phillies went 4-3 last week and barely managed to keep pace with the Mets. Bryce Harper caught fire last week, when he posted a .320/.469/.760 slash line with three home runs and a 229 wRC+. Meanwhile, notorious slow starter Kyle Schwarber is slashing .269/.424/.577 with seven homers and a 176 wRC+ so far this season.

That wild 13-11 game in Chicago was a killer for the Diamondbacks, who somehow lost despite scoring 10 runs in the eighth inning to take an 11-7 lead. Arizona also dropped Saturday’s game before narrowly avoiding a sweep with an extra-innings win on Sunday.

The Rangers treated us to an incredibly competitive series against the Dodgers over the weekend, the highlight of which was the pitchers duel between Yamamoto and Jacob deGrom on Friday. Texas was shut out in both of its losses in the series, but the team should be encouraged that its pitching staff limited the potent Dodgers lineup to a total of seven runs across the three games.

The Mariners won their fourth straight series after going 4-2 against the Reds and Blue Jays last week. Two of those victories came in extra innings after some late heroics salvaged some shoddy relief pitching. Cal Raleigh is making a strong case as an early season MVP candidate; he dumped four home runs into the stands last week.

An unfortunate walk-off loss to the Angels on Sunday spoiled the Giants’ week. They’re still in the thick of the crowded NL West, but now a step behind the Dodgers and Padres. If you’re searching for signs that this early success is sustainable, look no further than Jung Hoo Lee; he’s been absolutely phenomenal to start the season, posting a 172 wRC+ so far. On the mound, Logan Webb has been just as good, and San Francisco even enjoyed a vintage start from Justin Verlander on Sunday. He went six innings and allowed one run while striking out six before closer Ryan Walker blew the save with four runs in the ninth inning.

After taking three of four from the Royals over the weekend, the Tigers look like the team to beat in the AL Central. They are the only one in the division with a positive run differential. Most encouraging is that Spencer Torkelson continues to rake, collecting another pair of home runs last week and pushing his wRC+ up to 193.

The Braves started the climb out of their early-season hole with a weekend sweep of the Twins. Alex Verdugo provided a spark at the top of the lineup after being called up on Friday; he went 5-for-14 with two doubles in the three-game series. In other good news, Spencer Strider made his first start of the season earlier in the week. He went five-plus innings with five strikeouts in a 3-1 loss to the Blue Jays, throwing 97 pitches and topping out at 97.9 mph.

The Blue Jays’ hold on the AL East lead was short lived after a 3-3 week, but they can’t feel too bad about their second-place position in the standings. Oh, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finally hit his first home run of the season on Wednesday, lifting that one weird weight off his shoulders.

It’s been a slow start to the season for the Astros, but maybe their series win over the Padres is what they needed to turn things around. They probably need to look into whether or not first base is cursed in Houston; Christian Walker has really struggled to start the season, posting a 63 wRC+ so far with just a pair of home runs.

The Brewers ran out a thread-bare rotation to start the season, but they are suddenly about to be swimming in pitchers. Tobias Myers is scheduled to be activated from the IL this week and Brandon Woodruff shouldn’t be far behind. Milwaukee weathered that early-season storm and managed to keep pace just behind the Cubs in the NL Central.

After a bit of a slip two weeks ago, the Red Sox went 4-2 last week to get back on track. The most encouraging sight has been the early success of Trevor Story. Finally healthy, he’s posted a 146 wRC+ with five home runs and six stolen bases, and along with rookie Kristian Campbell (156 wRC+), he has stabilized Boston’s middle infield and lengthened the lineup.

I will admit to underrating the Guardians this year; they’ve won nine of their last 12 games and are just a half-game behind the Tigers in the AL Central. They swept the Pirates over the weekend to cap off what has been the softest schedule to start the season. Things will get a little harder this week as they start a long homestand against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Twins.

The Reds scored 24 runs in a massive beatdown against the Orioles on Sunday. With the starting pitching earning all of the early-season plaudits, it was nice to see the Cincinnati bats finally wake up.

The Orioles are feeling the ill effects of a neglected starting rotation. Yes, Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez are both on the IL, but it’s not just a lack of depth that’s hurting the O’s. They are also lacking the frontline production that Corbin Burnes provided last season. Baltimore starters allowed 25 runs in six games last week, and it’s become glaringly clear that 41-year-old Charlie Morton isn’t the solution.

The Angels’ dream start to the season took a blow when the Rangers swept them in three games early last week. They rebounded a bit over the weekend to secure a series victory over the Giants in dramatic fashion, scoring four runs in the ninth inning for their first walk-off win of the season. Mike Trout smacked two more home runs over the weekend — both of which naturally came in the one game the Halos lost — and he now has eight on the season, second most in the majors. He’s slashing just .184/.289/.513, though much of that wonky line can be attributed to his ridiculously low .133 BABIP; his .277 xBA and .681 xSLG further suggest that he’s been incredibly unlucky this season. Just as he’s bound to get hot as the season goes on and the small-sample-size noise quiets down, it’s likely only a matter of time before the Angels’ good fortune runs out and the team slides down the standings for good.

The Rays’ temporary move to George M. Steinbrenner Field this season has caused some scheduling quirks. Because they are trying to fit as many home games in as possible while the weather is still pleasant in Florida, they’ve only played three road games thus far. That changes this week as they embark on their first big road trip of the season, which comes after they went 2-5 last week against the Red Sox and Yankees.

The Royals managed just a single win last week, a come-from-behind, extra-innings victory on Sunday to barely avoid a four-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers. What’s more concerning is that Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia are the only two players on their roster with wOBAs over .300. At 2.91 runs per game, Kansas City has the worst offense in the majors.

One step forward, two steps back for the Cardinals last week; they won a series against the Astros but were then swept by the Mets in four games over the weekend. The resurgence of Lars Nootbaar and Nolan Arenado has offered St. Louis some hope, but the majority of this roster has been pretty lackluster.

I’ll give the Athletics credit, they know how to put some lopsided score lines together. They’ve played nine games decided by five or more runs, and have gone 4-5 in those games. Three of those blowouts came last week — with scores of 12-3, 8-0, and 14-1 — and the A’s won two of them. Tyler Soderstrom hit three more home runs, bringing his league-leading total to nine and his wRC+ to 191.

Since joining the Twins in 2022, Carlos Correa had never batted lower than fourth in the lineup until last week, when he was dropped to fifth during his ongoing slow start. He responded with four hits over the weekend including his first home run of the season. Minnesota lost all three games anyway.

The Marlins had gotten off to a better-than-expected start to the season until they ran into the Diamondbacks and Phillies last week. They emerged from those two series with just a single win, an extra-innings victory on Sunday. They did activate Jesús Sánchez and Connor Norby off the IL last week, so their lineup should be getting a little stronger.

The Pirates managed to win three of four from the Nationals last week, but their success was negated when they were swept by the Guardians over the weekend. Paul Skenes continues to dominate — a potential matchup against Yamamoto and the Dodgers on Friday promises to be must-see TV — and the rest of the pitching staff looks pretty good, though their offense remains a major issue. Only three Pirates are above league average at the plate: Oneil Cruz (125 wRC+), Joey Bart (129), and Enmanuel Valdez (115). Speaking of Cruz, his center field defense is still a work-in-progress.

James Wood has very quickly established himself as a future star with his hot start to the season. He blasted a pair of home runs last week and his wRC+ is now up to 139. The power he’s displaying is reminiscent of a young Juan Soto, and he looks like a strong foundation for the Nationals to build around.

It’s hard to imagine, but the White Sox are playing behind the pace of their historically inept 2024 team. They’ve won just five games so far. At least they’re giving some of their youngsters the opportunity to get experience in the big leagues. Catcher Edgar Quero was their latest call-up last week, and he collected his first hit on Friday.

There’s one team that’s been even worse than the White Sox: the Rockies. It was an eventful week in Colorado, as the Rockies placed Kris Bryant on the IL with a degenerative back injury, and there are real questions about whether or not he’ll ever play regularly again. They also fired their hitting coach and replaced him with Clint Hurdle, the former manager who led the franchise to its lone World Series appearance nearly two decades ago. Mercifully, on Sunday, the Rockies snapped their eight-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over the Nationals. It was Colorado’s fourth win of the season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Chandler Simpson may be the fastest player in baseball. At the very least, the 24-year-old center fielder is one of the few major leaguers with 80-grade speed, befitting a player who stole 104 bases in 110 games at two minor league stops last year. A day after making his major league debut with the Rays, Simpson’s speed figured into a controversial play in Sunday’s game against the Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, as he broke up Max Fried’s no-hitter… retroactively. That might not even have been the game’s most contentious call, as Aaron Judge lost an apparent home run on a towering fly ball that was ruled foul, even after a replay review.

Fried had held the Rays hitless through 5 1/3 innings when he faced Simpson for the second time in the bottom of the sixth inning. With a 2-2 count, Simpson hit a 78.6-mph grounder between first and second base. Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, a four-time Gold Glove winner, ranged over to his right to field the ball, but as he did, it deflected off the heel of his glove and towards second base. Simpson reached safely.

The play was initially ruled an error on Goldschmidt, and Fried carried on, retiring five of the next six hitters — the exception being when he grazed Curtis Mead’s right foot with a sweeper — and keeping the no-hitter intact through seven innings while the Yankees stretched their lead to 3-0. By the time the 31-year-old lefty took the mound for the eighth, the official scorer had reversed his previous decision, wiping out Goldschmidt’s error, crediting Simpson with a hit, and ending Fried’s no-hit bid. Read the rest of this entry »

First impressions are everything, the expression goes, and a poor one could have doomed Juan Soto’s 2024 season. The Yankees dealt five quality players for one year of his services; a slow start in the Bronx would have invited the wrath of tabloids and fans alike. But Soto started with a bang, gunning down a runner at home plate to preserve a ninth-inning lead in his debut and going on to hit .325/.438/.561 in his first month as a Yankee. From day one, he was undeniable.

This time around, he hasn’t been as lucky. Soto remains in New York, albeit in a different borough, and he’s fresh off signing the largest contract in professional sports history. By those standards, his start this season is underwhelming. His batting line is 25% above league average, but the shape of his production is essentially Soto at his least productive: tons of walks, a few too many groundballs, and not much extra base damage. The quasi-slow start prompted a story written by The New York Post’s Mike Puma headlined “Juan Soto opens up to The Post about pitchers’ new approach without ‘the best hitter in baseball’ behind him.” Read the rest of this entry »

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

– Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

On Thursday, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes welcomed a baby named Jett into the world. That same day, teammate Daulton Varsho was expecting to welcome his own baby. When I read the news, I did what anyone would do. I thought, “How wonderful for the Blue Jays,” and then I asked the internet to do some math for me.

Well that’s fun. Nine months before Lukes and Varsho became fathers, it was July 16, 2024. That date may ring a bell, because it was also the date of the All-Star Game. Lukes wasn’t in the majors at the time, but clearly, both players had very productive All-Star breaks. I decided it was time for a full investigation. Do baseball players make all their babies during the All-Star break? Read the rest of this entry »

Penn Murfee was mentioned in the interview with Trent Blank that ran here at FanGraphs on Friday. Discussing pitch profiles, Seattle’s director of pitching strategy recalled the erstwhile Mariners reliever being “a guy who had cut-ride” on his four-seam fastball.

Murfee is now with the White Sox, and Chicago’s South Side club is in Boston for a weekend series, so I took the opportunity to get his own perspective on the offering. What I learned talking to him at my home base of Fenway Park is that the movement he gets on his heater is circumstantial. Moreover, it’s legal.

“Back in 2021, in [Triple-A] Sacramento, my pitch profile changed from a running arm-side fastball,” explained Murfee, who was in the Seattle system from 2018-2023, the last year-plus of that span in the majors. “For whatever reason, I started choking the ball a little tight, and began throwing what was classified as a cutter. It went to zero inches of horizontal movement. My pitching coach at the time said, ‘Whatever you changed, don’t change it back.’ He said that I went from having a very average fastball to something unique.”

The reason behind the movement change? He stopped using sticky. Read the rest of this entry »

Ella Black was the first woman to write about baseball for a national publication—if her name was Ella Black, and if she was a woman. On Ella Black: Lost and Found, a three-part scripted series from Effectively Wild, Ben Lindbergh explores what we know about the enigmatic trailblazer and tries to solve some of the mysteries that have surrounded her ever since she debuted—and, just as suddenly, disappeared—in 1890. On Part 3, “Ella’s Legacy,” Ben reveals what he’s learned (and what we may never know) about Ella, connects her story to today, and pays his respects in person.

Link to Ella’s writing
Link to headstone photo
Link to gravesite photo
Link to family photos
Link to possible Ella photo
Link to Nancy/possible Ella photo
Link to Ella’s signature
Link to voice cast
Link to guest list
Link to period music
Link to pianist’s website
Link to “The Journalist” poem
Link to “Only a Newspaper” excerpt

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Give a Gift Subscription
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
 EW Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Spotify Feed
 Facebook Group
 Bluesky Account
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS