“Nobody believes in us!” is usually the cheapest heat in sports. I hate it. It fosters a base, provincial mindset among fans and players alike. It turns the joy of competition and success into hostility at a perceived (frequently imagined) slight. I’m just gonna come out and say it: If you need “the haters” to motivate you, you’re a small-minded person! If I never heard “nobody believes in us” again, I’d be a happy man.

Fortunately, I don’t have to hear it as much these days, because the 2019 Patriots — a year removed from their sixth Super Bowl win and ninth appearance in the Brady-Belichick era — rolled out the line and got laughed at. There’s a difference between “nobody believes in us” and “nobody likes us,” and the Patriots found out the hard way. They haven’t won a playoff game since.

Even though “nobody believes in us” is unimaginative, and usually untrue, and hackneyed into utter meaninglessness, I want to extend a waiver to the 2025 Cleveland Guardians. I’ll put my hands up; I didn’t believe in you. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Harrison is morphing into a different pitcher than the one the Red Sox acquired from the Giants as part of June’s jaw-dropping Rafael Devers deal. That was the plan when Boston brought him on board, as evidenced by the 24-year-old southpaw’s having spent close to three months in Triple-A following the swap. With 182 2/3 big league innings under his belt, the former top-rated prospect in the San Francisco system was sent to Worcester to have his repertoire reconfigured.

His primary weapons remain largely the same. Harrison still attacks hitters with a one-two combo that Eric Longenhagen called “an uphill fastball” and “a big bending breaking ball.” The former is an 94.8-mph heater, while the latter is an 84.2-mph offering that is categorized as a slurve.

And then there are the new additions.

“First and foremost, there is the cutter,” said Harrison, who has made two appearances and allowed one run over nine innings since making his Red Sox debut on September 10. “There is also a sinker that I can mix in to lefties. I have a new changeup grip, as well. Everything else is the same. The four-seam is kind of how I’ve always been identified — and I still have the slurve — so now it’s been about adding the other secondary stuff to protect it.”

Harrison mentioned adding a cutter when I spoke to him early last season, but the pitch never really took hold. Per Baseball Savant, he threw only six of them in 2024. As for the changeup, there have been multiple iterations. After tweaking his original grip last year, he is now a member of the kick change generation. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the final Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week of the year. As we prepare to leave the normal cadence of regular season baseball behind, we’re all already mentally preparing for the madcap pace of the playoffs, when the games are fewer but more momentous. This last week is more of a transitional phase; some of the series are monumentally important, while others feature the Royals and Angels (just to pick a random set) playing out the string. Maybe this is the best time for baseball, actually. If you’re looking for it, there’s more drama in the back half of September than in any other regular season month. But if you just want silly baserunning in inconsequential games, or role players making the most of big opportunities, there’s plenty of that too. I love October baseball, but I’ll be sad when September ends.

Of course, no Five Things intro would be complete without me thanking Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the format I’ve shamelessly copied. So Zach, I hope your Mets fandom isn’t too painful this week. To the things!

1. Playoff Races
Obviously. If this isn’t the thing you like most in baseball this week, you’re probably a Mets or Tigers fan, and even then, you’re probably lying to yourself a little. The thrill of a pennant race coming down to the wire is one of the great joys of this sport. Most of the time, I like baseball because no single outcome matters all that much. Lose a game? Play the next day. Strike out in a big spot? Everyone does that sometimes. Give up a walk-off hit? I mean, there are 162 games, you’re going to give up some walk-offs. But every so often, as a treat, it’s fun when the games suddenly transmute from seemingly endless to “must have this next one.”

Has the new playoff format played a role here? It’s hard to argue it hasn’t. This is the fourth year of the 12-team field, and it’s the fourth straight year with an unsettled playoff race in the last week of the season. It’s the third straight year with multiple good races, in fact. That’s not exactly unimpeachable evidence – the final year of the old format saw its own thrilling conclusion to the regular season – but the point is that when the last week of the regular season is filled with drama, it makes for a great playoff appetizer. I’m still unsure what the new format does to the competitive structure of the game, and I haven’t liked the way trade deadlines work when the line between contender and pretender is so hazy. But in late September, it sure seems to be giving me more of what I want. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners clinching the AL West, the benefits and drawbacks of MVP debates, the power of great players to enhance a season for spectators, the Cardinals’ and Giants’ reciprocal eliminations, the near-extinction of the 200-inning pitcher, the Nationals’ new head of baseball ops, and how predictive a track record of adept drafting is. Then (53:15) they answer listener emails about whether a player could/should ever challenge a ball/strike call that went their way, whether increased pitcher injuries have contributed to the lack of great teams, sticky-stuff inspections on broadcasts, how many pitches it takes to evaluate a pitcher, whether/why baseball managers incur fans’ wrath more than other sports’ coaches, whether teams are turning fewer double plays than they used to, and Trey Yesavage’s many 2025 teammates, plus (1:40:47) a postscript.

Audio intro: El Warren, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to 2015 MLB promo
Link to Ben on Judge vs. Ohtani
Link to Giants elimination story
Link to Cardinals elimination story
Link to pitcher IP leaderboard
Link to preseason pitcher IP projections
Link to Passan on Toboni
Link to MLBTR on Toboni
Link to WaPo on the Nats
Link to Ben on pitcher injury rates
Link to Ben on pitcher workloads
Link to Rodón quote
Link to MLB GIDP%
Link to Jays tweet
Link to quote-tweet
Link to Kenny Jackelen
Link to 2025 teammate leaders
Link to single-season teammate leaders
Link to listener emails database
Link to BP on Blalock
Link to Blalock leaderboard
Link to highest ML ERA (min. 55 IP)
Link to highest ML ERA (min. 100 IP)
Link to FG wOBA values
Link to BP location research
Link to FG playoff odds
Link to Darowski update

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I can’t tell you why the structure of the big leagues seems to bend towards close races. On August 31, the teams on the right side of the playoff cut line were all at least 2 1/2 games ahead of their nearest competitors. All baseball has done since then is collapse into chaos. The Mets have gone 8-13 to fall into peril, though that’s nothing compared to the Tigers, who have gone 5-15 over the same stretch. The Guardians are an absurd 18-5. Playoff fortunes have ebbed and flowed mightily.

Which players have featured most prominently in those games? There are any number of ways of answering that question. You could look for the highest WAR among contenders, the worst ERA or the most blown saves. You could use fancier statistics like Championship Win Probability Added, which accounts for how much each game mattered to each team. You could use the eye test, honestly – I can tell you from how frustrated Framber Valdez has looked this month that he’s not helping the Astros.

But the closest thing to matching the way I experience baseball, as a fan, is regular ol’ win probability added. My brain doesn’t distinguish between the importance of games when a team is in the pennant race. They’re all important. You can’t lose a random game on September 7 when you’re three back in the standings; you never know when the team you’re chasing will lose five in a row. Championship Win Probability Added distinguishes between whether your team is a long shot or playing from ahead, but when I’m rooting for one of the teams jockeying for a playoff spot, I don’t do that. I don’t think I’m alone in this, either. If every game in the race is equally important to you, Win Probability Added will measure the players who have mattered most in that framework. So I’ve compiled a list of notable players from the past month in each playoff race – and as a little bonus, I threw in a few players who have either stymied contenders or gotten trounced by them. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the lower minor leagues’ regular seasons are over, teams have commenced with instructional league activity in a traditional sense, with a select group of players from several of their affiliates working out and scrimmaging at their spring training complexes. While “Bridge League” (the unofficial period of scrimmage activity that occurs after the late-July conclusion of the Complex Level schedule) frequently includes some newly drafted players, most of the rosters are made up of the guys who have been on the complex all year. But once “instructs” begin, the talent and quality of play of these games ascends to a different level as teams test their most interesting young players or get an intimate look at prospects who might be up for a 40-man roster spot during the winter. The snowbirds haven’t returned in full because the weather here in Arizona is still pretty gross, so driving across the metro is easier now than it will be in a few weeks (and during next year’s spring training). For that reason, I decided to focus my early looks on teams based in the western half of the Phoenix metro, farther from the house. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Dan Szymborski: “Give me an introduction message for a Dan Szymborski FanGraphs chat that sounds like it’s from a deranged person with limited connection with reality and an obsession with history who also really really like FanGraphs”

12:02

Dan Szymborski: “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your WAR calculations! I rise today in this digital amphitheater not as Caesar, not as Napoleon, but as a humble pilgrim trudging across the blood-soaked battlefields of history in pursuit of a single shining truth: FanGraphs is the Rosetta Stone of civilization. When Rome collapsed, did the barbarians have wOBA? No. When Napoleon marched on Moscow, did he consult ZiPS projections? He did not — and look what happened! Yet here we stand in the Year of Our Lord 2025, blessed to witness the holy gospel of OBP+, xFIP, and Dan Szymborski’s inscrutable oracles. I have not slept in three nights, my parakeet now knows what BABIP is, and I carved the FanGraphs logo into the oak desk of my landlord while screaming about FIP- minus. Brothers, sisters, eternal strugglers against the darkness of ignorance, we gather not to talk of weather or bread, but of spin rates and aging curves, of regression to the mean and the cruel march of time itself! History collapses into the present momen

12:03

Dan Szymborski: I have not found this. It’s possible simply that they’re more exploitable, that the general declines makes them more obviously platoonable than a similarly talented player with small splits

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Like the 350/500 guy an ages to be a 330/450 guy and still hits 310/430 and 340/460

12:04

Dan Szymborski: But maybe the PLATOONY 350/500 guys is suddenly now a 280/350 and 390/550 guy where he once awas a 300/400 and 420/600 guy

Read the rest of this entry »

He did it! Cal Raleigh launched his 60th home run of the season last night, joining a rare club of elite sluggers. In hitting 60 so quickly, he’s left himself with a chance to match Aaron Judge’s American League record of 62, or perhaps even surpass it. With four games left in the season, how likely is it? I fired up my computer to ask. As a refresher, last week I modeled Raleigh’s home run hitting talent, the parks he’ll play in, and his scheduled opposition to work out which side of the plate he’ll hit from and how likely he is to hit a home run in any given plate appearance the rest of the way. Then I simulated the season a million times to work out the probability of each milestone. Read the rest of this entry »

“Don’t grade trades on deadline day,” said the wise man. It takes months to find out if Jhoan Duran will put the Phillies over the top, years to learn how Carlos Correa’s second stint in Houston will go, and perhaps as much as a decade to learn exactly how much the Padres might eventually regret trading Leo De Vries.

At least, so says the wise man. “Hogwash,” says I. Let’s grade the midseason trades now. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the delights of the last week of the regular season, the Dodgers’ bullpen problems, and what kind of compromise the challenge system is, then (43:09) answer listener emails about where the warning track extends, the easiest day at the office for a batter, a player who exclusively hits one single per game, whether MLB front offices are Bayesian or frequentist, the relative strength of the AL and NL, and ticky-tack tags, plus (1:37:08) a postscript.

Audio intro: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Skubal error clip
Link to MLBTR on Fry
Link to Tigers/Guardians game story
Link to MLBTR on Sasaki
Link to D-Backs/Dodgers game story
Link to Sheehan on challenges
Link to Goldstein on challenges
Link to Posnanski on challenges
Link to warning track definition
Link to Arenado play
Link to Stanton post
Link to Sam on NoPAPH
Link to NoPAPH by year
Link to 2025 NoPAPH
Link to Yount incident
Link to FG wOBA values
Link to Bayesian inference wiki
Link to frequentist inference wiki
Link to Marlins listing
Link to multiple Marlins listings
Link to Guardians listing
Link to Red Sox listing
Link to Rockies listing
Link to Angels listing
Link to Mets listing
Link to Springer tag
Link to Cameron on sliding 1
Link to Cameron on sliding 2
Link to listener emails database
Link to 2014 F1 story
Link to pitwall explainer

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