FanGraphs Baseball

King for a Night: Heroic Performance Keeps Padres Alive in NLDS Game 3

Denis Poroy-Imagn Images

When the Padres put Mason Miller on the paternity list ahead of NLDS Game 3, it always had to be this way. It’s like Chekhov’s gun; if you show me a missing closer in the first act, you must show me a late-inning situation where he’d normally appear in the final one. The Padres beat the Brewers 4-3 to stay alive, narrowing their NLDS deficit to 2-1, in what has been easily the most entertaining series of the divisional round.

Right from the jump, the Brewers put pressure on the Padres. And right from the jump, the Padres minimized the damage. Jackson Chourio tattooed a line drive to the deep part of the ballpark to open the game. In response, Jackson Merrill took off on a perfect line and slid across the warning track to corral it.

Nick Pivetta couldn’t throw the ball past anybody; Milwaukee swung 37 times at his pitches and missed only twice. The Brewers peppered line drives left and right, making frequent loud contact. But they got less for their troubles than you’d expect, because Pivetta beguiled them and his defense stood tall behind him. Read the rest of this entry »


Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before: Yamamoto, Hernández Bring Dodgers to Brink of NLCS

Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Sunday night’s encore performance of the Ray Kerr Variety Hour felt like a turning point in this postseason. The Braves had not only survived the Chris Sale bullpen fiasco, they were headed back home with the series tied and their two best starting pitchers lined up on full rest. The Dodgers have been on the ropes before during their back-to-back World Series-winning run, but those ropes felt especially menacing against Sale and the resurgent Braves.

Not to worry, Dodgers fans. Los Angeles escaped this crucible with a 3-1 win, and now sit one game from a third straight NLCS appearance. Regularly scheduled programming has resumed. Read the rest of this entry »


Major League Baseball Piloting Experimental Outfield Positioning Rules in Arizona Fall League

Eric Longenhagen

Major League Baseball is once again using the Arizona Fall League as a laboratory for potential rule changes at the major league level. In the past, the AFL has been a proving ground for rule alterations that have made their way to the top level of play, from the pitch timer, to limits on infield shifts, to the ABS challenge system; other initiatives, such as check swing challenges and fully automated balls and strikes, have previously been tested in Arizona but not implemented in the majors. This year, FanGraphs can report that the AFL is piloting new rules restricting defender positioning both on the infield (with the bases empty) and, perhaps more notably, in the outfield. Though MLB implemented restrictions on where infielders can play in 2023, this is the first time the league is piloting guard rails around where outfield defenders can be positioned when a pitch is thrown.

These restrictions first came to my attention during Monday’s game at Salt River Field, where Brendan Gawlowski and I noticed two things. First, Brendan noticed that the two teams’ corner outfielders were positioned both very close to the foul lines and much shallower than contemporary outfielders typically play. Of course, there are situations where a team might want to strategically align their outfielders like this, but for both teams to be doing so regardless of the hitter or game situation struck us as strange. Here is what that looked like on Monday:

Read the rest of this entry »


Members Only Game Thread: NLDS – Oct 6, 2026

Welcome to our Open Game Thread for the NLDS Game 3. Chat with fellow readers as we watch the Dodgers at the Braves and the Brewers at the Padres. Only Members can participate, and unlike our usual game chats, your messages will be posted immediately.

Our Member community is made up of thousands of incredibly knowledgable baseball fans, and we think this is a great way to follow a game with like-minded baseball enthusiasts. We might even have some FanGraphs Staff drop in and join the fun. Please be courteous to your fellow Members, or you may find your chat privileges revoked.

We are going to open the chat up at 5:30 PM ET.

What's the difference between a chat and a game thread? Is a game thread a no-moderation-queue chat?

Correct, this is just an open game thread. So more casual. People can interact with each other rather than having staff facilitate everything. Less friction.

The MVP Yeti arrived last week. Looks great! Thank you and keep up the good work!

Welcome everyone!

Wishing all a happy "hope the dodgers lose" day!

This is such a juicy pitching matchup! Feels like a game 1

I gotta get some polls up!

The pitching matchup is so good that this game will definitely end 11-6

Thoughts on Ohtani batting 5th?

Yeah, is that a “he’s not himself” thing or a “he’s not a good matchup with Sale” thing?

All the Sale discourse has people underrating the heck outta Yamamoto today

I voted for him to get pulled early….but thats more a hope than thinking he's not amazing. As a Jays fan i know all to well how he can take over a game

Don't expect it to change to much, but maybe he'll benefit from seeing a few batters worth of pitches before he goes to bat

Before checking just now I had no idea when this game started, or when the next one did, and these two start times would not have been in my top ten guesses. Definitely not staying up for the late game.

MLB's reluctance to have multiple playoff games on at once is annoying

I don't get why CLE game started at 5PM yesterday and today's is 6PM. Dodgers being a West Coast team vs midwest teams? 🤷‍♂️

I think both games being pacific time is the difference

Hi everyone!

I still haven't put the 👋 emoji in yet!

Hi Jon!

Oh wait this is in Atlanta lol

If Sale were a wide receiver, he would've gotten his foot down on the bag for the first out

Also, hi

Hi Matt!

Sean hasn't added the 👋 emoji yet

Someone submitted 4 PRs today that I need to review.

Kim paying homage to the Yankees defense

Sure would rather have Jorge Mateo…

Lets say the Rays and Dodgers ended up meeting in a 2020 rematch. Could the Rays style of play (lots of contact, small ball, etc) end up being a bad matchup for the Dodgers pitching (swing and miss stuff), or more of a repeat of how last year's WS turned out?

A factor here is that the Dodgers' fielding is generally much better than, to pick a random team, the Yankees'.

I thought the same thing since the Dodgers IF ranked well in OAA this year, but so did the Yankees and then last night happened 😂

Ohtani is certainly capable of taking ugly swings but goodness that was especially ugly

Yes, I think, especially if Ohtani is broken

That Sale arm angle and slider movement will break a man

Camera angle won't do hitters any favors tonight

Looks beautiful in Atlanta and it is in fact 25 degrees colder there than it was in LA for Game 1, so everything is weird about this series so far

This has to be the best matchup, pitcher wise, in any Game 3 ever played.

Good mailbag question. Could be investigated with career WAR or same-year WAR, maybe.

It's been DAYS since Matt asked me to do a mailbag question, I may have to look into this for this week

@ me next time

If you submit this as a question to mailbag@fangraphs.com, we'll answer it this week!

That is a very emotional challenge from Acuña

Has anybody ever seen a left-handed hitter who was a good matchup for Sale? 6'6" from deep down. I would pull a Kruk and just head back to the dugout.

Eric Hosmer absolutely owned him somehow, .346/.370/.538

Because Hosmer didn't use "analytics," Jon!

Just cannot burn that with nobody on and one out in the first

Acuna is awful at challenging.

Not a good challenge there

What a ridiculous challenge!

Bad challenge

Do we think Smith's glove movement could've impacted Acuña challenging there?

I will attempt to put together a coherent question.

Great pitching matchups that come to mind for me in the last 25 or so years- Clemens vs Schilling, Beckett vs Pettite was pretty tight in 03, Lee vs Sabathia in 2009, Lincecum vs Lee a couple games, Lester vs Wainwright had a good duel if I remember correctly

Randy Johnson faced Greg Maddux in 2001

oh thats right Ronald, forgot about that

Please identify that breaking pitch that Sale throws. It has been called a slider for years but doesn't look like any slider, short quick break, that I have ever seen.

I dunno what to call it besides "filthy" (okay, maybe a slurve)

That fastball under the hands to righties is pretty tough to hit as well.

Pedro-Roger in the 99 ALCS was a game 3, now that think of it

Great catch! That does beat this and by quite a bit.

Why just casually toss it over to first the second time given the rules?

Sale has the Goods tonight

These are the insights your Membership fees pay for, folks

Credit to the Dodgers for at least running up the pitch count

What makes this particular game 3 matchup crazier for me is that it's the first series for the Dodgers. They're set up and Yamamoto is still only their third most trusted guy. Their rotation is absurd!

The greatest miracle in sports is whenever anybody gets a hit off Chris Sale

I am beginning to think that when Sale's arm is attached he could be similar to the God of Arms, Nolan Ryan. Sale might pitch into his 40's.

Just take away his bicycle.

Pumping 99 at that arm angle at 37 is just incredible.

He did miss quite a bit of time in his 30s. But this Atlanta chapter has been impressive

Smoltz: "That was a true sacrifice"

That was a sweet play by Yamamoto there. I mean, totally unnecessary and no added value. But man, fun to watch

How can he even get close to first with that setup? impressive

Harris had that stolen standing up, wow

The chats haven't mentioned the explosion in offensive bunting. I am of the opinion that as pitching continues to get tougher to hit we are going to see more and more attempts, but hopefully not pure sacrifices with a man on 1st

Bunting for a hit has always been a relatively smart gamble if the pitching is good enough. Sacrifices…not so much, and I think these playoffs have generally demonstrated that teams agree

I imagine the run expectancy proposition from straight up sacrificing (runner on first, none out -> runner on second, one out) would get even worse as pitchers get better, right

Nice play by Dubon

Dubon is my choice for the most underappreciated player in the game today.

I wish they wouldn't cut the ump cam in the middle of a pitch like that.

That was a super fun play by Dubon and I am really divided about how tough it was. Like, pretty tough! But surely not the best catch we've seen these playoffs. That low wall makes it hard for my brain. Because I'm like what a robbery

but actually the really hard part was getting there and absorbing the contact, not like he had to leap super high

This postseason has had more catcher's interference than expected

Anyone else spot Baldy on Baldwin's chest protector? Not sure I'd love that nickname if I was him

I think it’s a rule that every catcher’s nickname is just the first syllable of their first or last name plus a “y”

They must be taking lessons from Jacoby Ellsbury on how to induce catcher's interference.

If memory serves, Ohtani last reached on catcher's interference in game 5 of the '24 World Series

How many pitches does Weiss give Sale? Lots of stress so far

I'm super interested in this!

I've had Sale on my mind a lot, what with writing about him and all. Feels like there are not a ton of moving parts to atlanta's strategy, but 'what do we do with Sale' is a massive and variable question

I feel like Weiss will push Sale a bit too far, whenever that is

I feel like Sale will push himself further than Weiss will.

Provided he doesnt start getting knocked around, I think you could see 110-115

After the Freeman & Hernandez flyouts, kinda looks like they got the juiced ball in this one

That splitter is filthy

I feel like this is the sickest pitching matchup I have watched all year.

It's so rare that a highly billed on really lives up to the billing. But damn.

These quick Yamamoto innings gotta be making Sale's stressful innings even worse right? No breaks

Definitely but Sale is also a sicko

He hasn't really been hit all that well which is encouraging. 3 infield hits

Does Dubon make these plays at SS?

I don't really understand what they're hoping to get out of Kim. What does he provide that someone like Jarvis doesn't other than standing in the right handed batters box

I have a very warm spot in my heart for Enrique Hernandez. His 2021 season with the Red Sox was something special and since I have no rooting interest I will enjoy his moment.

I guess we're doing October Enrique Hernandez again

Yamamoto is just DEALING. Was looking at Savant and this stat is kinda wild. He has 9 whiffs in 17 swings. Sale has 8 whiffs in 31 swings

And like, Sale looks sharp too!

worrisome stat for Sale, though: he's allowed 5 hard-hit balls so far, which is how many he allowed in his whole last start. Yamamoto has allowed zero, because jeez

er, six….

Can't rob that one!

I must not have been paying attention in previous Freeman visits to Atlanta but man, lot of booing!

Oh, this is new!

ah, well that explains it

Did he say something? It’s weird. But at the same time this is the playoffs not the regular season.

Hello, friends. How is playoff Erique possible? How is it possible?

I wonder if someone told him every day in the regular season that it's a playoff game if he'd be a Hall of Famer

like I guess I kind of remember it? But in my head it was kind of a mixed reaction, not this

Freeman was in quite a power outage before the playoffs. Seems to be back to normal now

This feels insurmountable

Well I think there's less curiosity on how deep Sale lasts now…

Davy, your article today has me looking to see if infielders are smelling the ball. I hope you're happy.

This makes me deeply happy. Honestly, that was some of the most fun writing I've done in a while and I stand by the idea one million percent.

Tough inning here for Sale, Weiss needs to start thinking about what to do. Last six hitters all put the ball in play:

103 mph grounder single xBA .380
94 mph liner out xBA .730
107 mph homer xBA .870
98 mph groundout xBA .230
103 mph homer xBA .580
108 mph lineout xBA .880

Ben, how are you doing?

I'm good. Getting all amped up for tonight's recap

You get amped? I get stressed.

This has very quickly devolved from “alpha pitching duel” into “Sale is probably going to be out of the game after five innings trailing by multiple runs.” Gonna see a lot of The Raptor (Brent Suter) today, methinks

Hey Becker! I almost asked for your help coming up with puns for my article this morning. Did I blow it?

I thought you did great 🙂

Oh, I just meant is that a particular skill of yours. Seems like it would be.

We can wave now.

Becker is FanGraphs' leading Pun-dit!

Baumann doesn't count – there is no word to describe what he does

I'm sure this is not a popular opinion, and I'm sure it's colored by anti-Dodgers sentiment, but I really don't like watching Yamamoto pitch. Something about these weak contact/BABIP merchant pitchers just grinds my gears. And his windup is weird too.

As a neutral fan I completely disagree

He says right before he blows a high 97 mph fastball by Albie's for his 7th K of the game.

I am the antithesis of you. I grew up watching Mel Parnell and Whitey Ford do exactly that and prefer that to today's TTO game.

I mean yeah he's very good of course

Yeah I'm with you, @lzfreak. Yamamoto is one of my favorit pitchers to watch

In the same way that I love watching Soto hit

like probably my least favorite pitcher to watch, relative to skill, is Blake Snell

I used to be on the anti-Snell-watching train but last year's playoffs won me over. Felt like he was attacking the zone better and working quickly and effectively

as a Padres fan, the year he won the Cy Young with us, it was frustrating whenever he pitched, not enjoyable to watch.

and Yamamoto is kind of reverse Snell

I still can’t really fathom how he can spin a curveball that beautiful from that arm slot

With the infield hits, catchers interference, quick Yamamoto innings, all stressing Sale it's not a surprise he got hit hard.

Was exhausting just watching those innings

how much longer does Kiké do this before we grudgingly admit that clutch *may* be a thing for *some* players?

Or is he incredibly un-clutch the rest of the time?

fwiw, Kiké has discussed how his ADHD does negatively affect his focus during the regular season but helps him during the playoffs. Take that for what you will.

this may be a tomayto – tomahto situation tbh

I wonder if there's an inefficiency in sports psychology or something where a team could try to unlock value by getting guys to focus/perform at peak more often. Not sure what that looks like

I think it's well established that there is such a thing as clutch–it's just not predictive. Just because it's not predictive doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Yeah personally I really enjoy pitchers like Snell. Guys who look like they're launching grenades rather than pea-shooting, if that makes any sense. Just a random person-to-person thing I guess

100%. personal preference is why baseball is fun. if we all liked the same stuff, the sport would not grab me the same way

Man Shohei frequently gets spooked on the inside corner like that

Hate to say it, but I agree with Smoltz there — bad challenge by Ohtani. Don't challenge in a 3-0 count with nobody on and your team up 3-0. Clearly an emotional challenge there

I think he's pressing a bit because he's not hitting up to his standard. Same reason why Acuna challenged his IMO

Ohtani and Acuna both made bad challenges on essentially the same pitch.

Shohei's plate knowledge up, down, and out are very good. Inside, it's very poor.

Best inning of the game for Sale. The Dodgers need to knock him out in the 6th and put that Braves' bullpen to work.

I will be curious to see the evolution of challenging pitches if it stays around for very long at all. The other night there was a pitch clock violation and, it happens so rarely now, I had nearly forgotten it was a thing.

Nice game by Dubon, stellar catch and now a leadoff single.

I haven't adjusted my emotional priors enough from 2021-2023. Austin Riley still terrifies me as an opponent.

I really like Snitker using the Rowdy card here, Yamamoto has reverse splits but ultimately is great against everyone and Rowdy has a better chance of running into one

Apologies to Walt Weiss, who is the actual manager of the Braves

Rowdy Tellez looks like the bad guy Mets hitter from Rookie of the Year

Dubon for Nick Allen was a great trade for the Braves, huh? They basically won on both ends

Losing Nick Allen is never a good thing.

like, they got Allen's best year, then moved him at the high point

selling high =/= selling tall

If you're pinch-hitting HSK with a guy who has 11 PAs this year, why start him at all?

Man, really had that rowdy stinger locked and loaded.

I love that Rowdy ended the year with a .506 xwOBA.

I missed the Braves moving Dom Smith for Rowdy Tellez.

Of all people to walk

Surprised that wasn’t a double play.

So Yamamoto can speak more English now. The interpreter stayed in the dugout for that mound conference.

It would be funny if they weren’t talking and it was just stalling/rest move.

Maybe the pitching coach learned Japanese

Acuna left his playoff hits on the field for Venezuela during this year's Classic.

A 3-1 perfectly placed splitter is just diabolical

Weird how diabolical is so much better a word than devilish.

One of my playoff resolutions was to be less annoyed by Smoltz. And for the most part, I think I've done it well. But I've been spiraling since he compared Ozzie Albies to Chipper Jones

Look, we know you don't know many players that aren't Braves. But can he be Terry Pendleton or something?

Mark Lemke with power

i mean, perfect

Chipper is 6'4"

One thing I haven't seen mentioned with all the Sale discourse: might he be in play for a potential game 5? It would be somewhat similar to the game 3 wildcard series move, but an inning or two from him in that scenario could be huge for the Braves

He'd definitely be available for this, yeah.

I think the WC series is the plan moving forward. Start on 5 days rest and use his throwing day to put him in relief

I love how these chats feel like we're just running amok in the FanGraphs work Slack.

Our Slack isn't typically this interesting.

The most exciting our Slack gets is when Meg accidentally sends the main channel that she’s getting lunch and then she’ll get to Baumann’s piece, so we all get to ask what’s for lunch. Riveting stuff

Asking what's for lunch is a time-honored FanGraphs tradition.

I got the chicken and the veggies cut up for the between games stir fry and I will rejoin this very interesting chat.

I got my dan dan noodle prep done before first pitch. Hope your dinner is tasty!

dan dan noodle? tell me more

I use the recipe from kenji Lopez alt “the wok” but sub peanut butter for tahini becuase of a sesame allergy. Super fast and easy. They also suggest using capers instead of pickled mustard root and it works!

If the Dodger's have the lead in the 9th who will get the save opportunity, Diaz or "shaky lately" Tanner Scott?

Darkhorse option of Evan Phillips

This NLDS features two of the game's best organists.

I think I'd even be willing to say 'the game's best two organists'

Having been to all 30 parks, this was my take as well

I envy you. I have been to 67 ball parks with my passion for minor league ball.

Roberts is going to have some VERY interesting bullpen decisions coming up

Let Yamamoto go 9!

I upvote that!

Wow, no challenge.

Is Matt Olson the highest-waisted player in baseball?

Sean Hjelle

Sean Hjelle is long-limbed all the way round. Olson combines long legs with a (comparatively) short torso and short arms.

how about Carl Edwards Jr? or is his an optical illusion based on being so slender?

watching players do ABS calculus in real time is such a fun new aspect of baseball strategy

How good are we at measuring the impact of challenges? Olson probably challenges that high strike and wins if Acuna hadn't wasted one

Very cool ump cam curveball

Do the umpires get told during the game about calls they missed that did not get challenged?

id imagine they get some kind of game report afterward breaking down all the calls rather than anything mid game

Yeah, postgame report. Also, you might recall that last year the league tightened up the buffer zone around the edge of the plate, which resulted in more strike calls.

I’ve never seen a switch hitter change sides against the same pitcher in all my life.

Freeman could have had 3 HRs this game as hard as he's hit them

I was just thinking of that line from Moneyball, when David Justice would come back to the dugout after hitting one as hard as he could and watching it die on the warning track: "That used to be gone."

If you could add 20 minutes of that movie to cover Hudson/Zito/Mulder, who do you cast?

This is a Matt question if I've ever heard oe, so I'll just say Andy Serkis for all three.

I like the idea of casting one person as all three, because they were so inconsequential to the season that they might as well all be the same person — in the eyes of the filmmakers anyway

They also ignored Chavez and Tejada… So their 5 best players. And Lidle by WAR

Back to FanGraphs Slack for a moment… Here's a real thing Baumann asked me two weeks ago: "Do you think you and I talk about Bulworth more than any two coworkers in the world, or do we just talk about Bulworth more than any two people in the BBWAA?"

I have never seen that movie, but in ninth grade, when the JV basketball team went to preseason camp, my friend Justin and I roomed together and he brought the soundtrack. He played Ghetto Superstar on repeat for the entire week.

Great news, Davy – I just bought the DVD on eBay. Come over and watch it during the offseason

Is it…good? Isn't there a part where Warren Beatty raps? Am I thinking of the right movie?

Slightly late to this. We had Sale at 5.65 for innings pitch…so 5.2 IP in our written convent. And he pitched 5.0 IP.

Median 6 IP. The 5.65 was the average.

Smart chat.

You are thinking of the right movie. And it is good! It's absolutely bonkers, but good!

I know they set this up for the CS but Yama as your number 3 is just downright disgusting. This guy is an ace of all aces.

I feel like there is a legitimate argument to be made that he is the most important player to them during this run of back to back titles and the attempt for the third.

Oh yeah they definitely don't win it without him last year

And if I recall he struggled early on in his first year? What a massive payoff for him to be this strong.

Hi guys, heard you were talking about Bulworth

I just laughed so hard.

If you command+F "Bulworth" in my Slack messages with Baumann, you get 14 hits

I'm shocked it's not five times as many

Yamamoto starts the 8th to deal with the nine hole pinch hitter and Vesia comes in for Baldwin.

Guys… Bulworth features an original score by Ennio Morricone!!!

Guess not with all the hand slapping in the dugout.

Gotta run. I just took out a hit on myself so my daughter can collect on my life insurance policy.

I figured with your article titles you were already living a life unencumbered by focus groups and handlers. I'm excited to see where it all goes from here!

Well done

Organist honoring Mii-guel Rojas 🙂

^This is a Bulworth reference for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing it yet

My (disingenuous) pet theory on Ohtani's poor second half is that he had a second kid in June and is just not sleeping well at all with the adjustment. Ask me how I know.

Has anybody on staff seen The Rock 150 times or so? Would be nice to have someone to talk to about that particular movie.

It is the best Bruckheimer movie. Honorable mention to Con Air of course.

Put some respect on THIEF

Oh, I have been meaning to see that!

I also own Thief! We can do a Bulworth/Thief double feature!

Guess I've got an addition to my watch list!

This sounds fun, but the whiskey taste test has to come first. Also, I have been informed by an interested party that it needs to be at your apartment.

Whiskey taste test DURING the Thief/Bulworth double feature!

No way. The taste test is a serious work assignment.

Which we should probably get on the calendar, actually.

Wow this has really turned into FG Slack

I just saw Longenhagen's piece about restricting outfield positioning in the AFL. Sounds very fishy to me (I don't mean Eric's reporting, I mean the idea reported on). Might not teams want outfielders to work on their defense, inckuding pre-pitch positioning, in Arizona?

Teams might want to, but MLB views the AFL as a low stakes place to try stuff out. That is more important to the powers that be than whether minor league outfielders can correctly read a card telling them where to play.

This is probably why they are only doing it in one stadium (this year). It's 14 games unless I counted wrong. The Salt River guys will get a little less "normal" outfield work, though.

Yeah. But then I also wonder whether that's enough games to see if it has an effect. But I guess it's nore of a heck, why not move than a carefully developed experiment.

Davy I make a decent number of The Rock references. But my wife has somehow not seen it even though we live in SF. It's a travesty

My wife fell asleep while watching it, and it hurt my soul.

She also fell asleep during Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I have an amazing cell phone video of her snoozing peacefully on the couch while John Williams' thrilling Indiana Jones score blares in the background.

I know he has played in four MLB seasons, but I refuse to believe Brewer Hicklen is a real player

Don't let Hicklen on, 70 speed.

I mainly remember Hicklen because when we did the crowdsourced OOTP Brewers in 2020, I traded for everyone with Brewer in their name: Brewer Hicklen and Colten Brewer

I just realized Hicklen was in fact a Brewer. . . for 5 PAs in 2024.

Who faces the Olson-Albies-Harris corridor in the ninth? Ideally that'd be Scott so I'm surprised he's being deployed here. Edit: meant to submit this at the start of the inning.

We getting Diaz in the 9th?

Why can't position players just stand where they wanna stand, Manfred?

For those unaware, Mason Miller was just placed on the paternity list

His Padres play an elimination game in half an hour

I know why teams put in their best relievers when losing a close game, but at what point is letting a team see that reliever over and over in a series a hindrance?

There's a name for this but I can't remember what it is

Familiarity penalty, I guess. Discussed in an Effectively Wild episode, looks like (and which I vaguely remember).

Yeah, there have been some SABR Research Journal articles about it as well.

Should have challenged that one right?

Down 0-2 in the count, with one challenge left, you have to be DAMN sure you're right

But if the game went extra innings the Dodgers would get another challenge so he should have used it.

The Braves' pen owns the Dodgers.

Austin Wells would have stretched that into a triple.

Not dead yet.

Maybe Ozzie Albies actually is Chipper Jones!

Diaz has been good (okay?) recently but I see this a risky move by Roberts.

How do the Dodgers always spend like 9 figures on the bullpen and come October nobody is trustworthy

I choose to watch (and love) the Moneyball movie as a piece of narrative art, not a documentary

I would trust Yamamoto in this spot.

Wonder if Kershaw is available for a token high leverage relief inning

Glasnow vs Mahle tomorrow!

The wok is hot and I will be back for the Brewers-Padres.

I ran off for a bit to set up for the next game. And to keep with my bit of criticizing the bad television personalities, did everyone else hear Derek Jeter bragging about how he 'told everyone about Yamamoto'? Oh, you mean the freaking world series MVP and one of the best pitchers in the world?

I like pizza. I don't go around yelling "I told you about pizza, don't act like I didn't" to people. Because, like, yeah.

I have a friend who brags about their skill at finding pizza.

like, a specific pizza place? Because I think I'd accept 'i told you about yamamoto's ability to land a split for a strike' or something similar

Hey Jack!

or like, just their incredible food knowledge that pizza is good?

that said – hey, being compared to Derek Jeter isn't the worst thing in the world

Not something specific. Though it tends to be Neapolitan/wood fire type pizza. Not like hole-in-the-wall finds.

I had another friend that wanted to go to all the VPN-certified pizzerias she could find. One was near me. I went it and it was delightful.

VPN-certified?

Googled it, that seems like a good way to find new spots

Hey Jack! (This time in the right place.)

Haha hey Davy!

Lunch tomorrow with my friend of 56 years will be at our favorite pizzaria. Great thin crust after a bowl of the best pasta fagioli I have found in my extensive travels.

I should have added the pizza emoji too.

Everybody in this booth looks like their mom combed their hair for them on picture day.

Freddie Freeman just sealed his future as a studio analyst….helluva postgame interview.

Excited for Playoff Piv feel like he'll come out chucking

So how should the Padres approach the lack of Miller here? Lean extra hard on Morejon and Rodriguez? Get weird with a starter in relief?

I get the paternity list thing, but now? Your team is facing elimination…tough decision, for sure.

Easy decision. Only decision.

Is anyone else bothered by how Amin pronounces "Contreras?" Sounds like he's saying "Contrerez"

Ok, yeah, I hear that.

Pivetta always frustrated me during his 5 years with the Red Sox. He always looked like he would do what he has shown with the Padres.

Yeah, how many Positional Power Rankings talked about his stuff versus his results?

Exciting Jackson play

That did not feel like it was going to get caught wow

I thought that was going to drop. He almost overran that too!

Can't believe he held onto it given where it hit his glove.

Bauers isn't a contender for Comeback of the Year because he never was anything but he is a contender for biggest surprise of the year.

Does Bryan Baker win AL Surprise of the Year?

He is on the ballot.

William Contreras being 28 and in the league for 7 seasons is shocking. Equally shocking is his 18.1 career bWAR. Quietly a top 5 catcher in the league consistently

He was #1 on the MLB position rankings at least once. I know I would like him to join his brother on the Red Sox.

On the “bad broadcasters” topic: this booth. Pierzynski and Wainwright make me wish I wasn’t a baseball fan. Absolute tire fire.

Oh wow the Padres are batting an actual good major league hitter second in their lineup!

Is it just me or does Dustin May look leaner than the last time I saw him?

Who is surprised that the Brewers chose May over Harrison?

Hopping back in quickly to say that’s the worst challenge of the year I think

Now back to my snack of saltines, which are genuinely good even when not sick. No further questions

I finished the Saltines last night.

Though I was slathering them in sweetened hazelnut butter.

This is definitely the correct take

The Nabisco mini-saltines are wonderful. Like un-cheesed Cheez-its.

“I’m here to chew bubblegum and make terrible ABS challenges, and I’m fresh out of bubblegum.” — William Contreras

Dustin May 100!!!!

Must have killed Contreras not to challenge that one.

Someone reminded him that the dugout is full of bubblegum. Literally littered with it.

It has been discussed so many times but what are these players thinking with these meaningless challenges. Are the coaches to blame?

I suspect there's a real concern about getting them too in their heads here. You want them to be aggressive, and you don't want them thinking about challenges when they're supposed to be hitting or catching. It's important, but not as important as driving the baseball or calling a good game!

Does Ty France Comeback Player of the Year count if he was coming back from mid?

The definition of a comeback should be the new controversy to replace the definition of a breakout. How good do you once have to have been to have a comeback?

Man, Pivetta’s throwing some real wiffleball curves.

Brewers doing a great job working the count. Bauers and Turang both struck out but on 9+ pitches each. What’s Pivetta’s expected pitch count? can’t imagine it’s high given coming back from injury.

He hit 87 in the start before last, so it might be fairly high if he's dealing.

Another challenge in a low leverage situation. ????? What is going on with these guys?

What a bummer that pitching coach Chris Hook never gets to be the one to take out the pitcher.

My favorite was when Craig Counsell was the Brewers manager. You'd have Hook out to give council then Counsell would come with the hook.

God willing he’ll aspire to managing, and then score one for nominative determinism

Which contract is a worse albatross, Bogaerts or Riley?

Depends on which owner is more spending averse.

ZIPS 3 yr projections still like Riley… or at least don’t factor in this year. Think Bogaerts contract is worse. More money, more years remaining, bogaerts is older, and decline to sub 2 WAR projected pretty quickly.

Murphy with the hilarious sound bite there

🤣🤣🤣

Just have Murphy call the game

This is why he's manager of the year every year.

Is he gonna win it a third straight year? I'm not sure who else you'd give it to

Every now and then we get rewarded for having the sound on.

Nothing against this booth, which I like, I just think they'd rather he call the game too

Playoff game in Petco going on my bucket list

atmosphere is so consistently fantastic

I guess the bunt paid off? I still don't like it.

It isn't luck that the Brewers and Guardians exceed their projections every year and often by a large amount. Vogt and Murphy haven't missed the playoffs yet. Why these teams mystify all the projection systems is impossible to quantify and it has to come down to something these managers understand that only a few have ever figured out.

This would be a good place to mention Jarrett Seidler's recent front office rankings, because he has a lot to say about how those two teams keep running out successful teams.
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/110449/2026-…

This is historically where May starts tilting. But he seems like he has kept his cool a little better this year than years past

May just jumped about eight feet in the air

He for sure thought it was gone off the bat.

was going to say may must have a 50 inch vertical haha

Already down to 37 here in central CT. Time to bid adieu to my tomatoes. I will NOT waste my hard earned money on those red baseballs sold in a store.

Looked like Salas tried to fake him out inside, set up away, then the pitch hung inside

Can only throw 92 down the pipe so many times Pivetta.

This is dumb, right? I can’t be the only one who thinks this is dumb.

Davy, I dumped Prospectus when I found Fangraphs so the article is hidden to me. The system must be more important than the people or the Mets wouldn't be the laughingstocks they were this year with David Stearns, who got all the credit, at the helm. I strongly believe there are managers who instinctively know when and where to put the players in the best spots to maximize their production much more efficiently than computers. The Red Sox players, in their postmortem, appeared to almost have a mutiny over what they saw as the excessive use of computers in decision making.

Whoa that was ballsy

Exciting stuff!

Wow

Sending the runner on such a short fly ball is just what I was saying and is part of the reason the Brewers win. I don't think many 3rd base coaches would have sent Pratt. As a group 3rd base coaches are afraid of being seen as the man who sent the runner if he was thrown out

Is PetCo the best of the corporate-named ballparks?

By name I mean

The problem with "best" is that there's a certain pleasure to be taken in the confusion of a bad one. In this regard the newly renamed Fifth Third Field (edit: it's actually Fifth Third Park) in Detroit should be a lot of fun, since it does not remotely sound like a meaningful three-word sequence.

Used to love Safeco and Miller, Petco up there with Busch and Citizen's bank maybe?

Coors is good, plus the corporations who happened to be named pleasant sounding ballpark names like American Family Field and Great American Ballpark

Wrigley 😜

I was disappointed to realize that Great American is insurance. For some reason I was absolutely sure it was a hot dog brand, which would be much better and funnier.

OFs playing deep stealing doubles

Reminds me of Ben's barrels article from the summer, wonder if that's even more true in the yoffs

Joining now, what I've seen of the last couple innings has been a fun, tense game

This whole series has been like that.

We need 5 games of this series

Absolutely

No one likes a parade of pitching changes, but they're more tolerable when both teams have a lot of electric guys coming in

reading the chat well behind, but I think the best corporate ballpark name was the original Arizona one. I think it was Bank One Ballpark and we got to just call it "the Bob"

Yeah, the local nicknames are where it's at. I thought "The Juice Box" was great in Houston.

Not just a local nickname, I called it the Bob as a Bay Area Giants fan

Also jokingly called the Coliseum "the Virus" in the years that McAfee had the naming rights

I spend a lot of time in Chicago for work–no one I know there bothers to learn the ever-changing name of the ballpark on the South Side. "Sox Park" is common (which also reflects the CTA's abbreviation for maps and schedules, which is just "Sox"), as is, naturally, "Comiskey."

I just read Eric's new article and now I'm thinking how that batted ball would be a boring routine out

Do you think that Cooper Pratt paid to have someone do that to his hair?

Does PetCo have a local nickname?

I lived in San Diego for 8 years in college and after and I never heard one from other residents or at a couple of games a season

the radio announcer would often say "from the gaslamp quarter" but that's the neighborhood not the ballpark and obviously he's required to use the corporate name

Chisholm should learn from Turang there

If we could all learn second base defense from Turang, the world would be a better place

Michael king in the game to close it down is fun

Why is King so likeable

That looked like a swing to me

We know Miller not being available hurts the Padres chance of winning. We know he did a thing about 9 months ago. Knowing those 2 things, what's the negative WPA of that thing he did 9 months ago?

Would be hilarious for the Padres to lose because of their closer's daddy issue.

I like how wild these chats get after midnight.

Yankees fan sad career of King traded for one year of Soto. Although if we would've won the dance, would've felt a BIT differently. Hindsight

Why King used though? no tomorrow. Maybe treating it like a bullpen session. Would still be available for game X?

my king, Mike King

I think King will pitch in Game 5 on short rest if they get that far

Is Lara running?

Yes

Wowowowow

So that's what defense should be like

A great series

ray and musgrove piggybacking tomorrow?

What a great ballgame! And series. Hope we get a game 5

What was the velocity on that last hit from Yelich?

107


The Many Slow Bounces That Baffled the Yankees

Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

Do you ever stop and think about how baseball would be different if the ball smelled delicious? Imagine that Major League Baseball, in its never-ending quest to abase itself for sponsorship dollars, forges an innovative partnership with Willy Wonka. In exchange for the title of Official Chocolate of Major League Baseball and the right to outfit the umpires in his trademark violet velvet coats, the eccentric chocolatier uses his quasi-supernatural confectionary gifts to impart one of several dozen mouthwatering aromas to each and every baseball used in a game. This baseball smells like warm chocolate chip cookies, the next one like toasted marshmallows, and the one after that like snozzberries. You get the idea.

Now imagine you’re pitching in the World Series. The umpire reaches into the pouch that dangles from their belt (but awkwardly, because they first have to flap the side of their knee-length velvet coat out of the way), grabs a new pill, and fires it out to you. Millions of eyes are on you. The game is on the line. The season is on the line. You’d still raise the ball up to your face for a whiff before you got settled on the mound, right? You’d have to. Would you really be able to go without smelling the ball? You know it smells amazing, but you don’t know how. If you didn’t sniff the ball, wouldn’t the curiosity about its scent be so distracting as to have a deleterious effect on your ability to pitch? Could you really say you’re putting your all into each pitch if you’re not acquainting yourself as fully as possible with the one and only tool of your trade?

I imagine that sniffing the ball would be something of a flex for infielders. Those who gloved a grounder with time to spare would earn the right to take a healthy waft before firing it over to first. I further conjecture that throwing the ball around the horn after a strikeout would take longer because the outfielders would insist on being included too. More importantly, I imagine that the error rate might tick down just the slightest bit. I’m not saying that major league fielders lack motivation to hold onto the ball as things stand right now, but I hardly think it would hurt to supply them with an additional reason to give it their all. Letting a ball go right through your legs feels terrible, but it probably feels just a little bit worse when you know that along with hurting your team, you’ve fumbled away a transportive sensorial experience. Maybe that would push you to take that extra round of infield practice, to lock in on every single pitch, to lay out for that ball. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about in the shower this morning as I reflected on the fact that last night, in the biggest game of the season, the New York Yankees played as if the ball smelled like a butt. Read the rest of this entry »


We’re Continuing Our Member-Only Playoff Game Threads Throughout October

Last week, we tried a few Member-only game threads on the site. They were pretty well received, so we’re going to host them each day of the postseason going forward. Our Member community is made up of thousands of incredibly knowledgable baseball fans, and we think this is a great way to follow a game with like-minded baseball enthusiasts.

Read the rest of this entry »


Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 10/6/26


Job Posting: New York Mets – Applied AI Engineer

Direct link to application (please see job details below):

Applied AI Engineer


Applied AI Engineer

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Summary

The New York Mets are seeking an Applied AI Engineer to build and ship production-grade AI capabilities that improve decision-making and streamline workflows across Baseball Operations. This role sits at the intersection of Baseball Systems (software engineering), Data Engineering, Baseball Analytics, Performance Technology, and modern generative AI. You will develop reliable AI-powered applications such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), secure tool/data integrations (MCP-style patterns), and agentic workflows that can support deep work and research, while ensuring strong standards for quality, security, privacy, and operational excellence.

This is a hands-on role for an engineer who can translate ambiguous baseball operations and player development needs into working software, iterate quickly with stakeholders, and harden solutions into durable systems used daily by analysts, coaches, scouts, and baseball operations staff.

Note: This role will require extensive in-person collaboration and innovation alongside stakeholders, analysts, and engineers. Applicants must be local to NYC (or willing to relocate) and be able to travel to Citi Field regularly. Travel to Spring Training and affiliates may also be required.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

  • Design, build and maintain AI-powered product experiences that provide intuitive access to baseball information and statistics and workflows across internal systems.

  • Develop end-to-end RAG pipelines (ingest, chunking, embedding, retrieval, generation) with strong attention to answer quality, baseball relevancy, analytics accuracy, latency, and cost.

  • Implement secure tool and data connectors for AI assistants and agents using standardized patterns (MCP-style), enabling safe interaction with internal APIs, data warehouses, and services.

  • Build agentic workflows that can execute multi-step tasks (research, analysis, synthesis, report generation) with clear guardrails, auditability, and human-in-the-loop approvals.

  • Partner closely with Product, Analytics, Performance Technology, Player Development, and Baseball operations stakeholders to frame problems, define success, and deliver measurable impact.

  • Contribute to shared engineering standards and reusable components so AI capabilities scale across multiple products and teams.

  • Ensure strong security and privacy practices (access control, data boundaries, logging and auditing, and safe handling of sensitive information).

  • Participate in high-availability support expectations as needed during critical operational periods throughout the baseball season, and during feature releases.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.

  • 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including building and operating production services.

  • Demonstrated experience building LLM-powered applications in production (prompt/program design, structured outputs, tool calling, reliability patterns).

  • Practical experience with retrieval systems (search, embeddings, vector databases, ranking, chunking/indexing) and applying them to real workflows.

  • Strong experience with modern backend and data integration fundamentals: APIs, SQL, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure (GCP/AWS/Azure)

  • Proficiency in one or more production languages commonly used for AI applications and services (e.g. Python and/or Typescript)

  • Approach work as highly collaborative and stakeholder-driven, with the ability to operate in ambiguity while iterating quickly.

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.

  • Experience working in sports, health, finance, or other high-stakes analytics-heavy environments, preferred.

  • Strong interest in baseball and comfort working within the culture of a professional sports organization, preferred

The above information is intended to describe the general nature, type, and level of work to be performed. The information is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required for this position. Nothing in this job description restricts management’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time. The individual selected may perform other related duties as assigned or requested.

The New York Mets value the unique qualities individuals with various backgrounds and experiences can offer the organization. Our continued success depends heavily on the quality of our workforce. The Organization is committed to providing employees with the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.

Salary Range: $180,000 – $200,000

For technical reasons, we strongly advise to not use an .edu email address when applying. Thank you very much.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.


Job Posting: Pittsburgh Pirates – Analyst, Baseball Strategy

Direct link to application (please see job details below):

Analyst – Baseball Strategy


Analyst – Baseball Strategy

Location: Pittsburgh

The Pirates Why

The Pittsburgh Pirates are a storied franchise in Major League Baseball who are reinventing themselves on every level. Boldly and relentlessly pursuing excellence by:

  • purposefully developing a player and people-centered culture;
  • deeply connecting with our fans, partners, and colleagues;
  • passionately creating lifetime memories for generations of families and friends; and
  • meaningfully impacting our communities and the game of baseball.

At the Pirates, we believe in the power of a diverse workforce and strive to create an inclusive culture centered in Passion, Innovation, Respect, Accountability, Teamwork, Empathy, and Service.

Job Summary

The Strategy team with the Pittsburgh Pirates exists to give the Major League coaching staff the information and tools they need to make elite in-game decisions. The group’s analysts translate information into clear, actionable plans that support both daily competition and long-term player growth.

The Baseball Strategy team will be considering applicants at both the Analyst and Senior Analyst level. In this role, you’ll work alongside Major League coaches and staff, helping turn information into on-field impact. Your work will include elements of game preparation, in-game strategy support, post-game review, skill development, and ongoing tool or process improvement.

Responsibilities:

  1. Partner with Major League coaches to build strong working relationships, understand the decisions they face, and identify where analysis can create a competitive advantage.

  2. Connect research to real baseball questions by turning observations from coaches, players, and data into testable ideas and pursuing the questions most likely to inform decisions or improve performance.

  3. Support the daily competitive process by contributing to game preparation, in-game strategy support, post-game review, and player development while balancing immediate needs with longer-term projects.

  4. Improve tools and processes by building and refining analytical resources that fit staff workflows and make useful information easier to access and apply.

  5. Collaborate across baseball operations by working with analysts, researchers, coaches, and performance staff to combine different perspectives, surface disagreements constructively, and move shared work forward.

Qualifications

Required:

  1. Authorized to work lawfully in the United States.
  2. Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information into actionable recommendations.
  3. Proven ability to manage multiple projects and meet tight deadlines in a fast-paced setting.
  4. Excellent communication and relationship-building skills.
  5. Strong knowledge of modern baseball research and technologies.
  6. Programming language proficiencies:
    • General purpose programming (Python or R)
    • Relational databases (SQL)
    • Familiarity with industry-relevant AI and automation tools to streamline daily workflows and tasks.

Desired:

  1. Experience working with coaches, analysts, or player development staff in a high-performance environment.
  2. Demonstrated baseball or other sports analytics research work product.
  3. Practical and/or research experience with pitch design and modern pitching development techniques.
  4. Proficiency with version control systems (e.g., Git) and collaborative development platforms like GitHub or GitLab.

Equal Opportunity Employer

The Pittsburgh Pirates are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Pittsburgh Pirates.


Effectively Wild Episode 2540: The Fly Test

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor and whether end-of-season surgeries for disappointing players are encouraging or frustrating, then share their takeaways from the first six Division Series games, including thoughts on Drew Rasmussen, an Austin Wells mistake, Rays crowds, Aaron Judge’s role in Rich Platelet, Poor Platelet, Grant Taylor (and whether postseason teams are pushing high-leverage relievers too far), the Blake Snell spectator experience, the upside and drawback of Chris Sale, two tantalizing fly balls (and a Ty France roof-related “what if”), how to tackle Jacob Misiorowski and Mason Miller, the Padres’ star scrubs, Jackson Chourio, and much more.

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

Link to MLBTR on M’s injuries
Link to FG on Rasmussen
Link to RHP SP velo
Link to Rasmussen leaderboard
Link to Wells article
Link to Wells clip
Link to Wells quote
Link to Wells math 1
Link to Wells math 2
Link to Wells math 3
Link to stop sign
Link to Apes movie clip
Link to Ben C. on 3B outs
Link to Judge taunt
Link to Schlittler comment
Link to Rays attendance article
Link to PH penalty info
Link to Somehow, Tellez returned
Link to Judge therapy info
Link to PPP study
Link to BP on Taylor
Link to Taylor as SP note
Link to Langs Taylor note
Link to Ben on not enough pitchers
Link to Pham comment 1
Link to Pham comment 2
Link to post on Pham
Link to Pham fly article
Link to Pham and Manfred
Link to Ben on October 2019 balls
Link to Sam on October 2019 balls
Link to Miz fouls fact
Link to Cleveland tourism videos
Link to Ben L. on Sale in 2018
Link to Ben C. on Sale
Link to Pages ABS ban
Link to FG Atlanta-LA preview
Link to Miller tipping story
Link to Erickson comment
Link to Langston pitch article
Link to France fly clip
Link to Tango on France’s fly
Link to Pelletier on France’s fly
Link to Leighton on France’s fly
Link to Sheehan on France’s fly
Link to Eno on France’s fly
Link to France fly data
Link to FG Brewers-Padres G1 recap
Link to FG Brewers-Padres G2 recap
Link to Chourio hit clip
Link to MLBTR on France
Link to AC joint info
Link to AC joint debridement info
Link to TFCC tear info
Link to wOBA-xwOBA leaderboard
Link to Harris transactions
Link to Salas history
Link to Merrill catch
Link to Díaz mechanical change

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1:58:10