FanGraphs Baseball

The Washington Nationals haven’t pitched well this season. Employing 41 different hurlers — the most in the majors — the NL East club ranks fourth from the bottom in both ERA and FIP, and has the fifth-worst strikeout rate. With a handful of exceptions, the often-patchwork staff has been mediocre at best.

The future is nonetheless promising. Under the leadership of Paul Toboni, who was named president of baseball operations 11 months ago, the Nats have cast aside their old-school ways and adapted an analytically driven approach to securing outs. Bringing on board Simon Mathews as pitching coach and Grayson Crawford as director of pitching were especially meaningful steps in the organization’s much-needed retooling.

Retaining Sean Doolittle was likewise a shrewd move. Now the assistant pitching coach after serving as pitching strategist in 2024 and 2025, the 39-year-old former closer is simpatico with Toboni, Mathews, and Crawford when it comes to modern-day methods. Data savvy while also bringing a been-there-done-that understanding of what translates to success on a big league mound, Doolittle is an important part of what the Nationals are working to build.

Doolittle sat down to talk pitching when the Nats visited Fenway Park earlier this summer.

———

David Laurila: The organization overhauled its pitching infrastructure this year. What are some of things you, and the staff as a whole, have been focusing on?

Sean Doolittle: “One thing that we’ve paid a lot of attention to this year is getting guys to use both of their fastball shapes, even to off-handed hitters. For our group, that’s been new. We don’t have a ton of velocity, so we have to be really conscious of our combos and our sequencing. I think it’s helped a few guys in our group quite a bit this season. Guys like Brad Lord have thrown a lot more sinkers this year to lefty batters. It’s still not a high-percentage-usage pitch for him, but overall it’s been a big part of our education process with helping our pitchers and our catchers read swings and sequence. Game calling and stuff like that.”

Laurila: I believe Andrew Alvarez is throwing more two-seamers this year? Read the rest of this entry »

Cam Schlittler brought his A-game on Sunday. Facing the Mets in the rubber game of the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees’ fireballer was nearly untouchable over the course of six scoreless innings, striking out eight while allowing just one hit, a fifth-inning double by Brett Baty. Meanwhile in Baltimore, the Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease worked around five walks to allow just one run over five innings while striking out nine. The two righties are engaged in an intriguing race for the AL Cy Young Award, one that could go down to the wire. The NL race is a tight one as well, with the Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski the favorite but hardly the only one under consideration.

The 25-year-old Schlittler and 24-year-old Misiorowski are undeniably the frontrunners in their respective leagues, from both statistical and narrative standpoints. They lead in our Tom Tango-modeled Cy Young projections, and as of mid-August, they dominated polls taken by MLB.com. Nonetheless, the statistical races that can influence both our perceptions and voter behavior aren’t entirely decided, and with less than two weeks to go in the regular season, the races are worth a closer look.

The 6-foot-7 Misiorowski and 6-foot-6 Schlittler share similarities beyond their impressive heights. Both are in their first full major league seasons, after arriving in mid-2025 and helping their teams to the playoffs while showing poise beyond their years; this October, they’ll be seasoned postseason veterans. They’re the majors’ two hardest-throwing starters, with Misiorowski breaking velocity records all over the place. His average four-seam velocity — a mind-blowing 100.6 mph — not only leads the majors, but it’s also the fastest single-season velocity by a starter in the pitch-tracking era (from 2008 onward), hardly surprising given that he owns the (scrolling, scrolling, scrolling) 117 fastest pitches by a starter in pitch-tracking history — including a record-setting 105.5-mph heater to the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong on June 26 — and 353 of the 394 pitches of at least 102 mph thrown by a starter. Hunter Greene is the only other one in double digits (12). Schlittler merely ranks second among all starters this year, with an average velocity of 98.0 mph, which is still good for fifth in the pitch-tracking era. Read the rest of this entry »

12:00

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! After a couple weeks of scheduling conflicts, this chat is back, baby.

12:01

Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a piece in the editorial pipeline regarding the two leagues’ Cy Young races. The consensus points to Misiorowski and Schilttler, and the impressions may be locked in, but their statistical edges aren’t as clear-cut as you might think.

12:03

Jay Jaffe: Last week, I wrote about the Teoscar Hernández revival (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-well-timed-teoscar-hernandez-revival/), the playoff picture (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/this-still-aint-team-entropy-but-both-leag…) and some AL East center fielder injuries (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-bad-weekend-for-al-east-center-fielders-…)

12:05

Jay Jaffe: The Red Sox have continued to deal with center field issues, with Eli White — who had done a decent job replacing Ceddanne Rafaela — landing on the IL with a right foot ligament injury

12:07

Jay Jaffe: (sorry, dealing with editorial queries)

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to give you a little sneak peek into my writing process. By the middle of September, we here at FanGraphs have written about a lot of baseball players. So many baseball players. And while no one’s going to be mad about an extra article about Shohei Ohtani or Pete Crow-Armstrong or the like, we try not to repeat ourselves. How many articles about, say, Cade Cavalli should we write in a year? I’m not sure – but if I covered him in July, I probably won’t in September.

That brings me to today’s article. I keep a list of pitchers who fascinate me, and I dig into it when I’m looking for a topic. I cross-reference it with WAR leaderboards and split leaderboards – you never know when someone you’ve been pondering will get hot and merit a deeper dive. When I sat down to come up with a topic yesterday, I crossed off a few usual suspects quickly. Yup, Chase Burns is still great, but nope, it’s not time to highlight that again. Chris Sale is amazing – as you’d well know if you read FanGraphs. Trent Harris got his first save for the Giants last week – but I’ve already written about my fascination with him. Read the rest of this entry »

When we think of the Miami Marlins throughout their history, offense doesn’t frequently come to mind. This franchise’s various owners haven’t traditionally put many resources behind the club, and what resources do come in often go to pitching. We remember the rotations led by Dontrelle Willis and Josh Beckett, or Kevin Brown and Livan Hernandez, or José Fernández.

Giancarlo Stanton’s 59-homer MVP campaign stands out in the memory partially because of how loanDepot Park blunted even his prodigious pop. (And also because Stanton got salary dumped to the Yankees before he could defend his NL home run crown.)

Here’s a wild stat: After this past weekend, the Marlins have a team wRC+ of 100. That’s their third-best wRC+ in history; they have only bested that mark in 2007 and 2017, with a joint franchise record of… 101. Read the rest of this entry »

With Meg Rowley on vacation, Ben Lindbergh continues his quest to (temporarily) resurrect a few dearly departed baseball podcasts. Next Up: The Baseball Show With Rany and Joe, featuring Ben, Rany Jazayerli, and Joe Sheehan of the Joe Sheehan Newsletter. With two weeks remaining in the regular season, Ben, Rany, and Joe talk about what’s worth watching the rest of the way: playoff races, awards chases, roster reshuffling, and more. They also examine some big-picture trends pertaining to MLB’s low-average offense, pitcher usage, expansion, and popularity.

Audio intro: Garrett Krohn, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to The Baseball Show podcast archive
Link to the Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Link to Rany’s medical practice
Link to Rany on the Royals
Link to Rany on Pitcher Abuse Points
Link to Ben on postseason usage
Link to Dan S. on 2026 playoff rosters
Link to Dan S. on the postseason crapshoot
Link to playoff randomness by sport
Link to Kiger wiki
Link to De Paula homer
Link to 2023 Cranston promo
Link to attendance-boost story
Link to article on Vlad’s homer
Link to article on Fischer’s homer
Link to the Teoscar resurgence
Link to Laurila on SP usage
Link to Ben on improving player talent
Link to Elly throw video
Link to Elly throw article
Link to Passan on expansion
Link to NBA franchise values
Link to KC ballpark update
Link to Veblen good wiki
Link to Sarris on sinkers
Link to Ben C. on expanded playoffs
Link to Dan S. on expanded playoffs
Link to FG combined WAR leaderboard
Link to Schlittler MVP article
Link to leaguewide K rates
Link to leaguewide non-pitcher K rates
Link to Ben on Ks in 2017
Link to foul-ball info
Link to Ben on pitcher limits
Link to Ben on improved defense
Link to Rany on Ben’s gaming pod

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Back in August, the baseball savants at Baseball Savant bestowed upon us nerds yet another helping of Statcast data, this time in the form of a first base receiving leaderboard. Mike Petriello and Tom Tango wrote explainers describing how the new metric works and what exactly it means. Want to know who’s the best at scooping the ball, or corralling bouncers, or jumping up and snaring high throws and then landing on the bag before the runner? Now you can learn that information without having to watch all that bothersome baseball.

In the simplest terms, receiving works like other Statcast metrics. Each throw to the first baseman has a catch probability, which then maps onto out expectancy. Say a throw has a catch probability of 75%. A first baseman who makes the play earns 25% of an out, while the first baseman who muffs it loses 75%. With this data, I can tell you that this season, Alec Burleson has been the best at this skill by a wide margin, while Bryce Harper has been the worst by the same amount. That last part’s not necessarily a surprise, considering that six weeks before the new metric dropped, I wrote an entire article detailing ways in which Harper needed to improve at the cold corner, and that four weeks after that, the Phillies moved Harper off the position altogether (maybe they should’ve tried some of my fixes).

Within his explainer, Petriello noted that, as is so often the case in the game we love, the numbers tell us that receiving is not quite as important as we might want it to be. In our hearts, scooping the ball is the soul of the first base position. If you can’t pick it, you don’t belong there. But in reality, opportunities to scoop the ball come so infrequently that its value is in no way commensurate with the premium we place upon it. Spencer Torkelson and Jonathan Aranda sit atop the scooportunity leaderboard with 18 apiece, which means that they don’t even see one per week. The next time you attend your Saturday night Moneyball singalong and you shout along with Ron Washington that first base is incredibly hard, feel free to voice your own addendum: “But it doesn’t matter much anyway.”

Nevertheless, I haven’t been able to keep away from this leaderboard. Tango and Petriello explained a whole lot, but I still found myself overflowing with questions that this new data can finally help us answer. Scoops and bouncers and wide throws may not be as important as I want them to be, but that doesn’t make them any less interesting. I have a bunch of article ideas about this topic, but today, we’re starting small. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The Padres’ recent hot streak has put some daylight between them and the Diamondbacks for the last open playoff spot in the National League. If that gap remains, playoff seeding is all that will be left to figure out in the Senior Circuit. Thankfully, we still have the potential for upheaval in the American League, where all three divisions are up for grabs and the Wild Card race is still unsettled.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format 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 between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

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.

…

The Brewers put the NL Central race to bed with a big sweep of the Cubs last week. The division isn’t officially clinched, but Milwaukee’s magic number is down to two. The Brewers became the first National League team to secure a spot in the playoffs when they demolished the Reds on Friday night, 20-0, a score that is shockingly only their second-largest shutout victory of the season. Jackson Chourio was an absolute menace. In addition hitting to the go-ahead, two-run single on Monday and the game-tying two-run home run on Tuesday — both coming in the ninth inning — Chourio collected 11 other hits, including another home run against Chicago on Wednesday.

Although the Rays clinched a playoff berth on Friday night, the battle for the AL East crown isn’t over yet. Tampa Bay and New York are separated by four games right now with a huge four-game series between the two rivals on the schedule next week. The Rays just wrapped up a sweep of the Astros over the weekend and have a series against the Red Sox this coming weekend leading into that decisive series in New York. All three of those teams are potential postseason opponents, making these last few weeks of the regular season a test of Tampa Bay’s mettle against some of the best the AL has to offer.

As for the Yankees, they managed to keep pace with the Rays by sweeping the Rockies and winning the Subway Series against the Mets over the weekend. Aaron Judge’s return hasn’t exactly been a spark for the lineup; he tallied just three hits in five games and struck out in half of his plate appearances last week. Instead, it was Cody Bellinger leading the charge with eight hits and three home runs. The injury issues haven’t abated either; Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit the IL on Thursday with a thumb sprain, though it doesn’t seem serious enough to jeopardize his availability in the playoffs.

The Red Sox stumbled a bit last week, losing three straight to the Angels and Royals. They got back on track with a pair of wins on Saturday and Sunday, but the losses probably cost the team a shot at overtaking the Yankees for the top spot in the Wild Card standings. Boston now sits 3.5 games behind New York with two weeks left to play. That means we’re likely to see another AL Wild Card series in Yankee Stadium between these two historic rivals.

Last week, the Dodgers finally bit the bullet and placed Shohei Ohtani on the IL to ensure that he’s fully healthy for the postseason. Despite their superstar’s injuries, they had been playing well until a pair of losses to the Marlins over the weekend snapped an eight-game winning streak. In Ohtani’s absence, the run scoring has been led by Teoscar Hernández and Mookie Betts; the two veterans have combined for 31 hits, eight home runs, and 27 RBI since the calendar flipped to September.

The Braves probably put the NL East out of reach with a series win over the Phillies this past weekend. It started with a dramatic extra-innings, walk-off victory on Friday and culminated in a 12-2 blowout on Saturday. After those two wins, Sunday’s loss didn’t sting so bad — Atlanta is five games up with two weeks left to play. With a patchwork rotation behind Chris Sale, owing to a myriad of injuries throughout the season, the Braves have to be glad they picked up Tyler Mahle at the trade deadline. He hasn’t allowed more than two runs in any of his seven starts with Atlanta and held the Phillies to just a single run in seven innings in that blowout win on Saturday.

The Phillies faltered last week, losing both of their series to the Astros and Braves. Their grip on a postseason berth is probably secure — they’re four games ahead of the Diamondbacks, the first team outside the playoff picture in the NL — but their place in the Wild Card pecking order is very much up in the air. They’re currently tied with the Cubs for that top spot, with the Padres just 1.5 games back. Where Philadelphia ends up could be critical because the team is currently sporting the worst road wOBA in baseball. The pitching staff has covered for that lack of punch on the road, but a Wild Card series away from Citizens Bank Park could make for a very short postseason run for the Phillies.

After being swept by the Brewers last week, the Cubs can also focus all their attention on their NL Wild Card seeding now. And with Ohtani on the IL for the rest of the regular season, Pete Crow-Armstrong has two weeks to solidify his case for NL MVP. He’s four stolen bases away from becoming the seventh member of the 40/40 club and a hair shy of becoming the ninth position player to post a double-digit WAR total in the last 50 years.

A seven-game winning streak has helped the Padres pull 2.5 games ahead of the Diamondbacks in the NL Wild Card race. Their Playoff Odds now stand at 77.6%, though that three-game series against Arizona the final weekend of the season still looms large. San Diego’s superstars have finally shown up to play. Jackson Merrill registered 12 hits and three home runs last week while Fernando Tatis Jr. matched his teammate with a dozen hits of his own. Since the All-Star break, those two teammates have combined for 5.5 WAR. The only pair of teammates to out produce them in that span — with 7.0 WAR accumulated — has been Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman on the Cubs.

The Astros just can’t pull away in the AL West race. A sweep by the Rays over the weekend dropped Houston back to .500, just a game ahead of the Rangers. The biggest problem has been an ill-timed slump from Yordan Alvarez. No longer leading the AL in home runs or RBI, the slugger has posted a mere 103 wRC+ over the last three weeks. He missed two games this past weekend with an ankle injury that might explain some of the slow down. With the battle for the division going down to the wire, the Astros are hoping that the early return of Carlos Correa will help provide a spark for the offense. Originally thought to have been lost for the season when he underwent ankle surgery in May, he’s set to begin a brief rehab assignment this week.

The White Sox are running out of steam at the worst possible moment. A 1-5 week against the Pirates and Cardinals dropped them to just half a game ahead of the Guardians in the AL Central. Suddenly, Chicago’s playoff hopes look a lot less solid than they did just a few weeks ago. On the other side of the coin, the Guardians have been playing just well enough to maintain a grip on the final AL Wild Card spot while putting pressure on the White Sox during their slide. Incredibly, Cleveland has been doing this without any help from José Ramírez; he’s batting .111/.149/.111 in September and hasn’t collected a single barreled batted ball since coming off the IL in late July. These two rivals meet in a decisive three-game series to start this week. If the White Sox prevail, they’ll secure the all-important tiebreaker over the Guardians.

Canada’s long national nightmare is finally over: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. finally hit a home run at home in Rogers Centre on Sunday, part of a 4-for-5 day at the plate. The Blue Jays managed to keep pace with the Guardians in the AL Wild Card race with a series win over the Orioles this past weekend. And with the AL Central battle up in the air this week, Toronto might be the benefactor in the Wild Card race if the team can continue to rack up wins.

These two long-shot playoff hopefuls met in a series over the weekend with the Rangers emerging victorious and improving their chance at a late-season charge into the postseason. Texas couldn’t overcome the Mariners earlier in the week, but the series win over the weekend helped the team take advantage of the Astros’ stumbles. A weekend series against the Blue Jays, the team immediately ahead of the Rangers in the AL Wild Card standings, is the next hurdle to overcome.

As for the Diamondbacks, they activated Corbin Burnes, Zac Gallen, and Michael Soroka off the IL last week, a huge infusion of pitching talent to their roster. Those three pitchers aren’t the only veterans helping carry the team during this playoff chase; Nolan Arenado has four home runs across his last eight games. Corbin Carroll also returned to the lineup over the weekend — he had been slowed by a nagging back injury over the last few weeks — but was healthy enough to blast a home run in Friday’s game.

Depending on how these final two weeks go, the Pirates could finish the season with a record over .500 for the first time since 2018. There were higher hopes for them this year, especially after their hot start to the season and a mostly competitive summer. Still, it’s significant progress after a long period of rebuilding. The most surprising development? The team is fifth in baseball in run scoring. With a young and talented pitching staff continuing to grow and Konnor Griffin now established in the big leagues, the future is looking brighter than it has in a long time.

A late-season surge from the Tigers has them in position to create some chaos in the AL playoff picture. Riding a four-game winning streak, they face off against the Blue Jays and White Sox this week. It’s been a perplexing season for Detroit. The team is on track to fall short of its Pythagorean-projected win total by the largest margin of any Wild Card-era team. It’s a small consolation that Kevin McGonigle will likely win the AL Rookie of the Year award, but at least his phenomenal season gives the Tigers hope for the future.

The Mariners’ roller-coaster season hit another low against the Athletics last weekend, when the A’s took three of four in an absolutely critical series in Seattle. Then, this past weekend, the A’s won two backbreaking walk-off victories in Sacramento on Friday and Sunday, slamming the door on Seattle’s slim playoff hopes. In between those two losses, the Mariners set a franchise record with a 19-1 blowout win on Saturday. If only they could have distributed those runs a little more evenly across the three-game series.

The Giants have suffered through a miserable season this year, but at least fans could count on seeing some excitement from the big stars on the roster. Rafael Devers had been in the midst of a torrid hot streak — he smacked seven home runs and drove in 19 runs in September — but he was placed on the IL on Sunday and is expected to undergo season-ending surgery to address a core injury. If not for the injury, Devers had a shot at becoming the first Giant since Barry Bonds to hit 40 home runs in a season; instead, Devers finished the year with 37 homers. Adding to the disappointment, Logan Webb could be joining Devers on the shelf soon, as manager Tony Vitello told reporters Sunday that the team has discussed shutting Webb down for the remainder of the year. San Francisco’s ace has struggled mightily recently — he’s posted a 9.86 ERA over his last five starts — and since the team has already been eliminated from contention, there’s no reason to push him over the next two weeks.

The Firebells took on the Hunters in a best-of-three postseason series that began last Wednesday. The WPBL’s regular season had concluded three days prior, with San Francisco holding the league’s best record at 10-5, while Boston finished the year at 4-11. Despite the dramatic difference in winning percentage between the one-seed and the four-seed, the Hunters made the series closer than the sweep suggests.

The Firebells won the first game of the series 6-4, then came away with a 9-6 victory in Game 2. Given that the average margin of victory in a WPBL game is over five runs, the Hunters at least forced the Firebells into a save situation to close out both games — a feat they had only managed in two of their 11 regular season losses. But even though the Hunters looked better on the postseason stage, they still didn’t have the firepower to go toe-to-toe with the Firebells’ league-leading offense. Read the rest of this entry »