You know Shohei and Clayton and Freddie and Mookie. Teo and Will Smith and Blake Snell and Roki. But do you recall the least heralded Dodger of all? Well, that’s not exactly fair, and I didn’t even name all the famous Dodgers, but here’s the point: I’m writing about a Dodger who isn’t one of the guys who seem to steal every headline.

Meet Andy Pages, the Dodgers’ everyday center fielder. A year ago, Pages was just another hopeful, the latest in a line of plus-bat, where-can-he-play-defense-though options cycling through the corners in Chavez Ravine. Pages’ prospect reports paint a clear picture: a swing built for lift, plenty of swing-and-miss, and sneaky athleticism that exploded after Pages returned from shoulder surgery. In 116 games of big league play, he took over center field (mostly out of necessity — he looked stretched there at times) and posted a league average batting line, though without the home run power that evaluators expected from him.

If you could freeze time there and give the Dodgers the option of having exactly that Pages for the next five years, I think they would have begrudgingly accepted it. Teams as full of stars as Los Angeles’ current squad need role players to fill the cracks in the roster, and outfielders who can handle center and hit at least okay are always in high demand. That isn’t to say that there weren’t encouraging signs – Pages’ athleticism was better than advertised and he showed plus bat speed – but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and he was already an excellent cog in the machine even without fully unlocking his power.

Flash-forward to this season. Pages started the year playing center and batting ninth. That’s the lineup spot for a complementary piece, a defensive specialist or fourth outfielder. He started slow, with a 70 wRC+ over his first month of play. The Dodgers didn’t have better options defensively, and in fact, Pages looked downright smooth out there, both to my eyes and to defensive model grades. When your team posts a collective 126 wRC+ for the months of March and April (for the months of May and June so far, too — this team is pretty good!), you can live with a below-average hitter playing a tough defensive position, so the Dodgers kept running Pages out there, slow start and all. And that brings us to April 22, when Pages got hot and didn’t stop. Read the rest of this entry »

As June gets underway, the American League playoff picture is as muddy as ever — 12 teams are within 4 1/2 games of a playoff berth right now. Meanwhile, in the National League, there’s a pretty clear line between the haves and the have-nots, but even if the playoff picture isn’t as crowded, the races should provide plenty of drama this summer.

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 with comments on a handful of clubs. 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.

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The Tigers and Cubs battled through a competitive and entertaining series last weekend, with Detroit taking two of the three games. It’s far too early to call this a World Series preview, but it’s certainly a possibility with the way these two teams are playing. The Tigers went 4-3 in their week of games against the two Chicago clubs, and their bullpen blew leads in all three of their losses. For now, this seems like more of a blip than a true concern — the Detroit bullpen ranks sixth in the majors with a 3.30 ERA and a 3.29 WPA, even if the peripherals (3.81 FIP, 3.71 SIERA) aren’t quite as strong — but it’s something to monitor as the season progresses.

The Mets split their NLCS rematch against the Dodgers in Los Angeles last week, with three of the four games being decided by one run, and then went to Colorado and swept the hapless Rockies. Pete Alonso was a one-man wrecking crew; he blasted five home runs and now has 17 on the season. New York has gone 12-3 since falling to three games out of first place with a loss on May 23, and as the Phillies continue to struggle, the Mets begin this week ahead 4 1/2 games in the NL East.

In their first matchup against the Red Sox this season, the Yankees lost two of the three games and allowed 27 runs in the series. Earlier in the week, New York placed closer Luke Weaver on the injured list with a hamstring strain, but the team did get back dynamic infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr.. After missing over a month with an oblique injury, Chisholm went 8-for-21 with two home runs and three stolen bases.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Dodgers. They’re 10-12 over their last 22 games and neither their offense nor their pitching can find much consistency right now. Los Angeles collected 19 total hits in its first two games against the Cardinals last weekend but somehow managed to score just a single run, going 1-for-25 with runners in scoring position. The Dodgers salvaged the series with seven runs on Sunday in a 7-3 win, but their bats are still having a relatively rough go of things since their 18-run outburst against the Yankees the previous Saturday. The concerns about their lineup pale in comparison to the injury woes of their pitching staff, as Tony Gonsolin became the latest pitcher to go down with elbow discomfort. The good news is the Dodgers activated relievers Michael Kopech and Kirby Yates off the IL last weekend and spun an under-the-radar trade for former All-Star closer Alexis Díaz, whom the Reds optioned to Triple-A after a disastrous April. While the Dodgers are letting Díaz work things out in the minors before recalling him, the returns of Kopech and Yates should help to bolster the bullpen; the starting rotation, though, is still spread dangerously thin. Things won’t get any easier for the Dodgers this week, when they face the Padres and Giants for the first time this season. Both teams are just a game behind Los Angeles in the NL West standings.

The Astros have gotten hot at exactly the right moment. Their surge has coincided with a Mariners slide; Houston overtook Seattle in the AL West standings in late May and padded the lead last week. The Astros have gone 11-5 over their last 16 games, a stretch that began with taking three of four from Seattle, and are now 2 1/2 games up in the division. Jeremy Peña continues to lead the offense during this hot streak; he collected 10 hits last week and had a 13-game hit streak snapped on Sunday.

The Rays and Blue Jays continued their rise up the standings last week; Tampa Bay swept the Rangers and won two out of three against the Marlins, while Toronto took both of its series against the Phillies and Twins. In 16 games since May 23, Rays third baseman Junior Caminero is slashing .349/.388/.825 with seven home runs and a 242 wRC+. A resurgent George Springer, who smacked a game-winning home run on Saturday, has been the most consistent run producer in the Blue Jays lineup.

The Giants tallied two more walk-off victories last week, bringing their season total to eight. All seven games of their games last week were decided by one run, and they haven’t played a game that was settled by more than three runs since May 23. San Francisco is now 22-11 in home games this season, one of the best home records in baseball. After a 5-2 homestand, the Giants return to the road with a 38-28 overall record, which puts them just a game behind the first-place Dodgers in the NL West.

The Phillies are phree-phalling right now, with just one win in their last 10 games. That lone win came in their series opener against the Blue Jays last Tuesday, and then over the weekend they were swept by the last-place Pirates. The Philadelphia offense went especially cold, managing to score just one run in four of its last five games. To make matters worse, Bryce Harper was placed on the IL with a wrist injury over the weekend, though it sounds like it might be a minor issue.

Injuries have become an issue for the Twins again, only this time, it’s in their starting rotation. Both Pablo López and Zebby Matthews were placed on the IL last week with shoulder injuries; López is expected to miss at least two months, while it’s unclear as of this writing how long Matthews might be out. Thankfully, Royce Lewis is healthy and snapped an 0-for-28 stretch with a hit on Tuesday, and then notched six more after that.

The three teams in this tier all feature flawed lineups with no more than one or two superstars who are tasked with putting the rest of the offense on their backs. The Guardians couldn’t handle the Yankees and Astros last week, though José Ramírez continued to rake. He carries a 34-game on-base streak into Monday’s series opener against the Reds, and he has at least one hit in all but two of those games. Overall, he’s slashing .333/.392/.556 with 12 home runs, 18 stolen bases, and a 163 wRC+. Meanwhile, Bobby Witt Jr. is catching fire after a so-so month of May; though the Royals went just 3-3 last week, Witt brought his season wRC+ up to 126 after going 9-for-25 with two homers. Kansas City also called up top prospect Jac Caglianone last week to bolster what has been one of the worst offenses in baseball. Seattle had a rough week, getting swept by the Orioles and losing two of three against the Angels, but Cal Raleigh bashed three more home runs, extending his major league-leading total to 26.

It was the worst-case scenario for Corbin Burnes and the Diamondbacks. First, the ace left his June 1 start with an elbow injury, and then on Friday, Arizona announced he would undergo Tommy John surgery. He’ll miss the rest of the season and most likely all of 2026 as well. It’s a deflating blow to a club that’s been struggling to keep up in the extremely competitive NL West. The rotation has had its fair share of troubles this year, and Burnes’ injury is the biggest one yet.

In a wide open AL playoff picture, it’s not too late for the Rangers to get back into the race, especially if their offense starts to click. To that end, after an abysmal start to the season, Marcus Semien is 15-for-29 with three home runs and a 324 wRC+ over his last nine games. Let’s see if his teammates follow his lead and start mashing this week, when Texas visits Minnesota for three games before returning home to face the White Sox over the weekend.

However, it probably is too late for the Orioles to recover from their disappointing first two months, but at least they’re playing much better baseball recently. They lost their weekend series to the Athletics, but before that, they had gone 9-2 over their previous 11 games. They activated Colton Cowser off the IL last Monday and should be getting Jordan Westburg back from his hamstring injury any day now.

It might be time to admit that it’s just not the Braves’ year. They were swept by the Diamondbacks and the Giants last week, and their seven-game losing streak has dropped them to 14 games back in the NL East and 9.5 games back in the NL Wild Card standings. On Thursday, they blew a six-run against Arizona in the top of the ninth inning, and then lost back-to-back walk-offs against San Francisco on Friday and Saturday. More concerning has to be the ongoing struggles of Spencer Strider; he lost his two starts last week, both his ERA and FIP are up over five, and his Stuff+ is down about 20 points from his last healthy season in 2023.

The Athletics snapped out of a month-long tailspin with a series win over the Orioles last weekend. The A’s peaked on May 5 when they walked off Seattle and pushed their record to 20-16. After that, they lost 24 of their next 27 games before finally beating the Twins 14-3 on Thursday, exactly one month after the high point of their season. During that 3-24 stretch, they allowed 7.8 runs per game, by far the worst mark in the majors.

Not only did the Rockies finally win a series last week, they secured a three-game sweep of the Marlins! It was their first series win since September of last year and the first time they had won more than two games in a row this season. That winning streak was quickly snapped, when the Mets swept Colorado at home over the weekend. The Rockies are a truly terrible team, no matter how hard Davy Andrews tries to make them look good, but for the sake of all the loyal fans who somehow still show up to their games, hopefully last week’s series won’t be the only one they win in 2025.

Read the rest of this entry »

I humbly request that you watch the following home run three times. During your initial pass, I merely ask that you permit yourself to marvel at the power of Pete Alonso. Exclaim, should you feel so moved. This level of ferocity certainly merits stiffer punctuation than a period can provide.

The second time you take it in, allow yourself to focus on the reactions. Catcher Dalton Rushing and baserunner Brandon Nimmo offer an illuminating interplay. Nimmo cranes his head toward the heavens and prepares to tag up on the play in spite of the fact that the ball goes on to land some 900 feet past the left field wall. Rushing recognizes at once that the ball has attained escape velocity, and he reacts by lifting his hands with enough suddenness and precision to send you searching the web for the phrase “rude Italian hand gestures.” A couple behind the plate provides a master class in the Long O sound:

SHE: Whoa.
HE: [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Nooo.
SHE: Ohhhh!

On your third pass, please focus exclusively on pitcher Ryan Loutos as he crumbles into dust. The young pitcher’s delivery is a study in contrasts. He’s all elbows and knees as he drops and drives, but he finishes with such rotational force that his follow-through twists him all the way around toward first base, torso first, arms and right leg swinging forward in neat arcs to catch up. He’s linear then rotational, angled then curved, herky-jerky then smooth. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — Carlos Rodón was cruising until he wasn’t. After shutting out the Red Sox for the first four innings on Sunday night in the Bronx, Rodón scuffled while facing Boston’s hitters a third time, serving up two homers and allowing five runs before making an abrupt departure in the sixth inning of what became an 11-7 loss. It was a rare bum note from the 32-year-old lefty, who has stepped up to help the Yankees overcome the losses of Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil, pitching well enough to merit All-Star consideration.

Through four innings of an AL East rubber match between the first-place Yankees (39-25) and fourth-place Red Sox (32-35), Rodón had allowed only one hit and one walk while striking out four. He hadn’t thrown more than 16 pitches in any inning, had gotten first-pitch strikes against nine out of 14 hitters, and had allowed just one hard-hit ball: a 109.9-mph grounder by Ceddanne Rafaela that became an infield hit in the third. That play was compounded by a Jazz Chisholm Jr. throwing error, but it turned out to be of no consequence.

In the fourth inning, Rodón issued a two-out walk to Carlos Narváez, who to that point was just the second hitter he’d fallen behind 2-0 all night. It was the start of a trend. He went 2-0 against Abraham Toro before getting him to pop out to lead off the fifth, and after falling behind Trevor Story, induced him to pop out as well. To that point, he had retired 14 out of 16 batters, but he would get just one of the next five. Rafaela, the owner of a 42.7% chase rate (fourth-highest in the majors) wouldn’t bite at any of Rodón’s first three pitches, all well outside the zone, and ended up drawing a rare walk. Two pitches later, Kristian Campbell sent an up-and-away fastball just to the left of the foul pole in Yankee Stadium’s short right field, a towering 99-mph, 38-degree drive that didn’t slice. The runs snapped Rodón’s 18-inning scoreless streak, which dated back to the final inning of his May 16 start against the Mets. The homer was much less emphatic than Aaron Judge’s 108.6-mph, 436-foot blast off Red Sox starter Hunter Dobbins in the first inning, but it tied the game nonetheless. Rodón then struck out Jarren Duran chasing a low-and-away slider to end the frame. It was his 15th whiff on the night (six via his slider, five on his sinker, three on his four-seamer, and one on his change-up), and his fifth and final strikeout. Read the rest of this entry »

Few things tickle my fancy like a baseball player up to no good. Blue Jays reliever Brendon Little presently holds this distinction. Take a gander:

That’s Ramón Laureano swinging at Little’s knuckle-curve, which Little bounced off the front edge of home plate. Here’s another (pardon Matt Olson’s cameo):

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Texas Rangers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Ron Washington has formed strong opinions over his long time in the game. One of them is built on old-school common sense. The 73-year-old Los Angeles Angels manager doesn’t believe in hefty hacks from batters who don’t possess plus pop, and that’s especially the case when simply putting the ball in play can produce a positive result. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t like home runs — “Wash” is no fool — it’s just that he wants his hitters to play to the situation. Moreover, he wants them to play to their own strengths.

The subject came up when the veteran manager met with the media prior to a recent game at Fenway Park. Zach Neto had gone deep the previous day — it was his 10th dinger on the season — and Washington stated that he doesn’t want the young shortstop thinking home run. I proceeded to ask him if he likes any hitter thinking home run.

“That’s a tough question,” he replied. “You’ve got guys that are home run hitters — that’s what they do — and you’ve also got guys that are home run hitters who are ‘hitters.’ There are guys that can walk up to the plate, look for a pitch, and take you deep if you throw it. Neto is not one of them.

“The game of baseball has transitioned itself to the point where everybody is worried about exit velocity and launch angle,” added Washington. “Even little guys have got a launch angle. They’re supposed to be putting the ball in play, getting on the base paths, causing havoc on the base paths, and letting the guys that take care of driving in runs drive in the runs. But for some reason, the industry right now… everybody wants to be a long-ball hitter. And I see a lot of 290-foot fly balls. I see a lot of 290-foot fly balls where they caught it on a barrel. If you caught the ball on a barrel and it only went 290 feet, you’re not a home run hitter. I see a lot of that.”

What about hitters that do have plus power? Does Washington like them thinking home run? That follow-up elicited any even lengthier response. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Saturday, everyone, and welcome to the first edition of the FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag! We’ve got a lot to cover today, including how to fix the Braves, how the Orioles might fare if they sell at the deadline, the most fun plays to lead off games, and so much more.

But before we get there, I’d like to remind all of you that while anyone can submit a question, 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 next week’s mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.

OK, that’s enough housekeeping. Let’s get to the first question, which comes to us from one of our international readers!

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I’m just wondering if it’s weird that the Twins have had two seasons in a row with winning streaks equal to or greater than 12 games after an absolutely garbage start. We didn’t even have a magic piece of preserved meat this year. Can we read into these tea leaves at all? Does God exist and, assuming they do exist, what has Minnesota baseball ever done to them? — Incomprehensibly Irrational in Ireland

After doing some Stathead research, it seems that you might not be “Incomprehensibly Irrational” after all, because you’re onto something here. The Twins are the second team in the Divisional Era to have winning streaks of 12 or more games in back-to-back seasons. Cleveland won 14 straight games in 2016, from June 17 through July 1; the next year, from August 24 through September 14, Cleveland ripped off 22 straight wins, the longest single-season winning streak since at least 1901, which is as far back as Stathead’s research goes. Those Cleveland teams were both really good, though. The 2016 club went to the World Series, and was 35-30 entering play on June 17; the 2017 team won 102 games, most in the American League, and was 69-56 entering play on August 24.

The closest comparison I could find to these Twins are the Chicago Cubs in 1927 and 1928. Chicago won 12 straight games in 1927, but that streak began on June 5 — later than the two Minnesota streaks. Those Cubs started slow, too, though 4-7 is not as rough a start as the Twins of the last two years, who were six games below .500 when their winning streak began last season and as many as eight games below .500 this year. Also, by the time the 1927 Cubs began their winning streak, they were three games above .500, at 22-19. The next year, the Cubs had a 13-game winning streak, beginning on May 5, when they were three games below .500. They finished the season 91-63, good for third in the National League.

So, all this is to say the Twins are the only team ever to begin winning streaks of 12 games or more before the start of June in back-to-back seasons, and if you extend the timeframe to the first week of June to also include the 1927-28 Cubs, the Twins are still the only team to win at least 12 games in consecutive seasons after being more than three games below .500 in each year. Sure, that’s a specific subset with a lot of qualifiers, but the Twins are a weird team! Late last August, as part of the cross-country road trip that I wrote about for FanGraphs, I stopped and saw a Twins game at Target Field. Despite their place in the standings — they were 72-60 and held the third Wild Card spot — they looked completely dead. Their outfield play was sloppy; their plate appearances were uninspired. Watching them against the Braves, another disappointing team, I could feel Minnesota’s pending collapse. Hopefully, for both you and my grandma, who is a die-hard Twins fan from Brainerd, Minnesota, the 2025 Twins won’t endure the same fate down the stretch as last year’s club did. Considering their rotation has the most WAR in the majors and Byron Buxton is (knock on wood) healthy and performing well, I think there’s a fairly good chance that they will be just fine.

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What is the most fun play to lead off a game? – Ben Lederman

Such a delightful question, Ben! I immediately thought of an inside-the-park home run, and I mean a clean one, without any errors that would put the “little league home run” asterisk on it. Give me Oneil Cruz at Coors Field, rocketing a line drive into the right-center gap in a game when the Rockies are giving Brenton Doyle the day off. Cruz blasts the ball so hard that it caroms off the wall at a weird angle, and because of the unexpected direction of the ricochet, it takes backup center fielder Mickey Moniak a little more time to pick it up. Cruz is rounding third when Moniak unleashes a perfect throw to cut-off man Ezequiel Tovar, who fires a nearly flawless one-hopper home. In a single motion, catcher Hunter Goodman snags it off the bounce, drops to his knee, and swipes his mitt to his left. Simultaneously, in an attempt to avoid the tag, the 6-foot-7 Cruz leaps head first toward the area where Goodman had been squatting before the pitch and extends his left hand to the point of the plate. It’s bang-bang. The umpire signals safe!

I also asked some of my FanGraphs colleagues what they thought. Here’s what they had to say:

Davy Andrews: I might argue for a crazy wild pitch, one that hits way up high on the net or sails way behind the batter. It really makes you wonder what’s going to happen next, and whether the game is going to get weird immediately.

Ben Clemens: I’m a defense-first guy, so I want to see this: Leadoff hitter hits a ball in the gap and gets thrown out trying to stretch it to a double.

James Fegan: A brawl to lead off a game really puts you on watch for the next nine innings.

Jay Jaffe: I’ll go with a little league home run.

Esteban Rivera: I always love a long at-bat to start a game, like at least 10 pitches.

Leo Morgenstern: I’m going simple. I think it’s just a no-doubter, first-pitch home run.

Kiri Oler: I know it’s not technically a “play,” but I like a nice bee delay to start a game.

Davy Andrews: Yeah, I’d like to change mine to that one.

Kiri Oler: I just think we can all use a friendly reminder that as much as we might like to think we’re in control, Mother Nature still runs things around here.

Jake Mailhot: A home run (little league or standard fare) is probably the right answer, but I’ll argue for a three-pitch strikeout with three whiffs. Immediately puts you on notice that the pitcher is feeling it today, and something might be cooking.

Lucas Kelly: Bunt single.

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As a Braves fan, my question is about the Braves offense – namely, how do you fix it? With so many lineup regulars locked into multi-year contracts, and nothing of note in the minors, is there anything even to be done except wait it out? The Braves fired their third base coach and brought back Fredi González, which seems like the kind of move that was only made because Alex Anthopoulos has too much respect for Brian Snitker to fire him midseason. I’m afraid that what we’ve seen from the Braves in 2024 and 2025 is closer to what they truly are, as opposed to the wonderful 2023. Should I have any reason for optimism that they will rebound? — Matt W., Nashville

The Braves are in a tough position if they want to fix their offense. They don’t have a lot of ready help in the minors, as you note, and don’t appear to have a lot of surplus talent to trade, but one position where they could afford to make a move is at catcher… where they did just get help from the minors and created a surplus. With top prospect Drake Baldwin breaking camp with the team and thriving in tandem with Sean Murphy, the Braves have an enviable pair of backstops, but that may be a luxury they have to forgo to fill other needs. They could sell high on Murphy, who has rebounded from a rough 2024 to hit for a 123 wRC+ and is signed through 2028. Good catching is always in short supply, and the Braves do have James McCann, a competent if unspectacular backup, stashed at Triple-A Gwinnett. Sure, it would be a bummer to trade a productive hitter away from an offense that needs help, but with Marcell Ozuna parked at DH, either Baldwin or Murphy is sitting on most days.

Additionally, the Braves do have a few below-market contracts, which gives them some room to maneuver; they can shake things up if they want to. Ozzie Albies is making $7 million this year with options at the same price for each of the next two. A team that’s more committed to winning than bean-counting could just eat his remaining commitment or sell low and trade for a better second baseman — not that it can be easily done without weakening some other part of the roster or system. Michael Harris II, who’s signed through 2030, has been terrible at the plate, but speed and defense give his value a floor, making him a buy-low possibility for a team willing to supply more immediate help in return.

Beyond that, there’s reason to wait — and even be optimistic. Jurickson Profar will be eligible to return from his 80-game PED suspension on June 29. That should help in left field, where Alex Verdugo and friends have combined for -1.0 WAR. It’s also not unreasonable to hope for some positive regression from Matt Olson and Austin Riley, both of whom have scalded the ball but are well short of their expected numbers. Ronald Acuña Jr. has hit well since coming back, and while it hasn’t coincided with a team-wide offensive outburst yet, the odds of one are certainly better with him in the lineup. — Jay Jaffe

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A lot of readers are probably well-versed on the 20-80 scouting scale, but can you give us more context on what that translates to at the major league level? It’d be interesting to hear some examples of 50/60/70 shortstops, who has a 30 hit tool, who has 70 power, etc. — Satya

I think there are useful modern applications for the traditional scouting scale. It’s a concise way to paint a fairly detailed picture of a player’s skill set. This sort of scale (where 50 is average and each integer of 10 represents a standard deviation from the average) was built to help describe distributions across any sort of population, like the size and color variation in carrots, or the rates of traffic accidents at different times of day, or, in our case, the distribution of talent across high-level amateur and pro baseball.

We have so much more data to consider now then we did when this scale was initially conceived as a potential means of communicating scouting information across a department of people without computers. Here are some of the statistical baselines and distributions that I use as a reference when interacting with in-kind minor league data for position players — we can do pitchers another time. I’m generally able to pull this information from FanGraphs; there’s often a big league equivalent to whatever minor league data I’ve gotten my hands on that’s accessible using our leaderboards and custom reports.

Here are the league-wide averages across the last 10 years for many of the statistical categories I think are meaningful when assessing players. The upward trend in some of the power metrics is a reminder that these scales shift and change. You can also play with the individual positions to get an idea of just how high the bar is at first base compared to catcher or center field.

Let’s start with some metrics that help measure a player’s hit tool:

Here are some examples by position, using full-season 2024 numbers:

This is a crude assessment. Note that there are plenty of hitters toward the bottom of the contact rate leaderboard who have high batting averages. Those guys are crushing the baseball when they make contact and netting more hits per ball in play; a hitter’s strength and power also impact the way their hit tool actually plays. These metrics are more indications of pure barrel feel, and I think that’s supported by the above list of names.

Next let’s look at raw power:

The league-wide average has been steadily creeping up over the last 10 years or so at every position but first base. Here are position-by-position deltas for hard-hit rate over the last 10 years:

Remember these deltas are in percentage points, not percentages. For shortstops, this is a 33% increase on balls put in play at 95 mph or more since 2015. Here are the players with top marks in these statistical categories:

There are no real surprises here. You can play with the leaderboards across positions, handedness, age, or various windows of time and learn more. Once you know the big league average and the standard deviation, you can basically ballpark everyone’s raw power as you surf around. Again, it’s crude, but it’s a piece of the puzzle for any prospect.

For speed, Statcast’s sprint speed is a great way of measuring a runner’s top speed. It’s giving you feet/second in the runner’s fastest one-second window. Base-to-base times (most commonly home-to-first times) give you a little better idea of a runner’s speed over a longer distance. You get some combination of top-end speed and acceleration in the home-to-first times, though beware of the jailbreak-style hitters whose times are better than their pure speed. Home-to-first times are most often what’s generating the speed grades you see in scouting reports. The players with 30 feet-per-second sprint speeds and home-to-first times hovering around 4.10 seconds are who you can safely call 80-grade runners. Most of those guys will run four flat or below on their best bolts.

As for defense and throwing, that’s something I gauge visually. I often look at Clay Davenport’s site and scope out the really big numbers in either direction as a flag that I need to assess a player’s defense, either through tape study or by communicating with scouts. Here is one totally subjective example of defenders at each grade and position (please excuse my name abbreviations):

— Eric Longenhagen
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Assuming they are healthy at the trade deadline (not a given at the moment), what would be a fair return for each of Cedric Mullins and Ryan O’Hearn? Can the Orioles expect/hope to get Top 100 pitchers for them? – Ben from Boston, FG Member since 2021

If O’Hearn and Mullins are both healthy come July and their performance hasn’t disappeared, I can imagine the O’s doing well in short-term returns. A Top 100 pitching prospect is a fairly big ask, because you’re only trading two months without an extra year as the kicker, and around 100, you’re at names like Carson Whisenhunt or Tink Hence. It’s not completely outside the realm of possibility, of course, because right now there don’t appear to be a lot of sellers with talent to target, as teams like the White Sox and Rockies have a fairly empty cupboard. Rather than focusing on one particular pitching prospect, the Orioles might use such a trade to instead pick up a few lower-ranked pitchers who have some kind of plausible upside, and see how things shake out. If the O’s are still struggling to crack .500 in late July, and Mullins and O’Hearn remain on the roster and unsigned to extensions, it would probably be malpractice if they start August in orange and black. — Dan Syzmborski

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This question is for any of the blog writers, but I had Michael Rosen in mind: How often do you find yourself 5-10 hours into researching an article and then reach a null hypothesis? Do you try to publish these anyway in some other format? This also doubles as a question about your process for picking research topics and then pursuing them: Do you do them one at a time? Multiple irons in the fire? How (if at all) do you collaborate with the other writers on staff? — Kevin Li

I try to avoid excessive dead-end research as much as possible by doing a bunch of work on the front end. If I find something that looks promising, I’ll pitch the story and start writing in earnest, but for every thread that’s worth pulling on, there are a bunch more where I write, like, 10 lines of code and realize I’m working toward a dead end. And the other writers have been super helpful when I’ve got a gap in my knowledge of some specific area of analysis, like hitting mechanics. I think I’ve sent over half the staff a Slack message at some point asking for help on one question or another. — Michael Rosen

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Spencer Strider’s concerning performance, how he and Sandy Alcantara remind us that comebacks from elbow surgery aren’t automatic, and whether things are lookng up for the White Sox on and off the field. Then (32:23) they bring on top-tier Patreon supporter John Thomas to banter about his background as an EW listener and baseball fan, answer listener emails (42:34) about the future of baseball’s historic cathedrals, whether sabermetrics inevitably promotes efficiency and specialization, whether Mariano Rivera delayed the reimagining of bullpen roles, the evolution (or devolution) of framing, and a rotation of Paul Skenes clones, and then Stat Blast (1:38:33) about the Rockies and the best-ever infield defenses, Devin Williams and the worst holds, and notable matchups between minor leaguers and rehabbing big leaguers.

Audio intro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Philip Tapley and Michael Stokes, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to WhatIfSports offer page

Link to Davy on Strider
Link to TJ return study
Link to White Sox TV info
Link to MLBTR on Ishbia
Link to Ishbia wiki
Link to story on Ishbia’s home
Link to story on the Suns
Link to Ishbia letter
Link to Sheehan on the Sox
Link to Vargas leaderboard
Link to team SP WAR
Link to Veres on the Rockies
Link to Dubuque article
Link to Scout School series intro
Link to Scout School series conclusion
Link to Ben on no-hitter defense
Link to Ben’s gaming pod
Link to John Thomas slang
Link to Russell on shortening up
Link to article on historical TTOP
Link to Rob on TTOP over time
Link to Molina framing montage
Link to Ben on framing in 2013
Link to Ben on framing technique
Link to Skenes TTOP splits
Link to Russell on SP handedness
Link to Ben on SP playoff familiarity
Link to Ben on RP playoff familiarity
Link to Monfort on defense
Link to all-time infield defense
Link to 2025 infield defense
Link to infielder definition
Link to infield definition
Link to rulebook on infielders
Link to Ben on Piazza
Link to hold definition
Link to Williams game
Link to worst 2025 holds by WPA
Link to McDaniels game
Link to worst-ever holds by WPA
Link to Cascarella game
Link to worst 2025 holds by RE24
Link to Maton game
Link to worst-ever holds by RE24
Link to Cox game
Link to Kershaw game story
Link to Kershaw box score
Link to Reds prospect list
Link to rehabbing pitchers sheet
Link to rehabbing batters sheet
Link to Ryan Nelson
Link to Robert Au
Link to listener emails database
Link to Excellius
Link to La Colaborativa
Link to Dotson/Farrell article
Link to SNL Goulet clip

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