The last of the extant pre-divisional era franchises to not have won the World Series has finally hoisted their own trophy, as the Texas Rangers shut down the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-0, to score the team’s first championship. Texas’ starter, Nathan Eovaldi, was shaky in the early going, but every last one of Arizona’s runners were stranded on the basepaths, and the shelling of Paul Sewald in the ninth sealed the deal with insurance runs.

If you just watched the starting pitchers, Eovaldi and Zac Gallen, for the first five innings on Wednesday night, you might be surprised that the series didn’t find its way back to Texas. The Rangers entered Game 5 having won all five of Eovaldi’s starts this postseason, but it was Gallen who looked to have the advantage early on. Eovaldi’s control was spotty. He allowed five walks over five innings, the most free passes he’s issued in a decade, going back to when he was a hard-throwing Marlins prospect who had trouble putting away batters. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for eight of this year’s free agents — in this case, another group of starting pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for eight of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of starting pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent.

Below are ballots for four of this year’s free agents — in this case, an exciting group of player who have previously played in NPB and the KBO. Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy Pham got benched this postseason. That probably sounds weird to you, and for good reason. He’s been one of Arizona’s most consistent players in the World Series, with hits in every game and a boatload of loud contact. But not so long ago – Game 5 of the NLCS, to be precise – Torey Lovullo sent Pham to the bench and didn’t even call on him to pinch-hit.

Why? It’s pretty simple: Pham wasn’t hitting. He struck out six times in his first 13 plate appearances of the championship series. More broadly, he was mired in a postseason-long funk. He was hitting .229/.250/.314 in October, and his peripherals were somehow even worse than that. He posted a 2.8% walk rate and 30.6% strikeout rate. His chase rate was up five percentage points compared to the regular season. His hard-hit rate was down, albeit in a tiny sample. Don’t write this off as merely a random blip; Pham was legitimately playing worse, and the poor results were a natural consequence.

While Torey Lovullo phrased it as more of a rest day – “I just was giving him a little bit of a blow,” he told Sam Blum – I think there was a little more to it than that. Zack Wheeler, the pitcher that night, has an expansive arsenal, but against righties, he tends to feature his sinker and sweeper. Sinkers might be Pham’s greatest weakness. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers’ Game 3 win proved costly and bittersweet, as both starter Max Scherzer and right fielder Adolis García departed due to injuries. General manager Chris Young and manager Bruce Bochy chose to treat the losses with the urgency befitting a team in hot pursuit of a championship, so prior to Tuesday night’s Game 4, both were replaced on the active roster, officially ending the seasons of a prospective Game 7 starter and record-setting cleanup hitter. Lefty reliever Brock Burke and utilityman Ezequiel Duran were anointed to replace them, ensuring Bochy a full complement of 26 able bodies.

The Rangers waited until an hour before gametime to announce the moves, which added an element of surprise to the situation, though had the injuries occurred during the regular season, the replacement of both players would have been a foregone conclusion. From the vantage point of the 10–0 lead the Rangers built by the third inning of Game 4 and the 11–7 victory that pushed them to within one win of a championship, the absences were felt, albeit not quite in the manner one might have expected. Burke pitched briefly and badly, and Duran remained a bystander as Travis Jankowski picked up the slack in García’s stead. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like pitchers? Of course you do – you’re reading a recap of a World Series game on FanGraphs. Good news, then: Game 4 had so many pitchers. Swingmen, high-leverage guys, LOOGYs, ROOGYs, forgotten starters who had accumulated a light covering of dust throughout the playoffs, closers, setup men. You name it, this one had it. Unless, of course, you were rooting for the Diamondbacks.

When bullpen games work, a whirling mass of relievers traipse onto the mound and befuddle the hitters. When bullpen games don’t work, a whirling mass of relievers still traipse onto the mound, but with significantly less befuddling. Tuesday was one of those nights.

Joe Mantiply started off smoothly for the Diamondbacks, with four outs among the first six hitters. The bottom of the lineup was up, but Mantiply had already thrown 28 pitches, and Torey Lovullo started the bullpen carousel. Miguel Castro came in – and then things fell apart.

Castro retired the first batter he faced, but he just didn’t have it. Even that at-bat featured spotty command, and things got worse from there. With Leody Taveras batting, Castro uncorked a wild pitch that allowed a run to score. Then he walked Taveras. Then Travis Jankowski, who had only batted twice this postseason and was only in the lineup due to Adolis García’s oblique injury, laced a line drive single. Suddenly Texas’ best hitters were up with a chance to do damage. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for eight of this year’s free agents — in this case, another group of outfielders. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for eight of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of outfielders. Read the rest of this entry »