Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. You might think that this September is a poor one for baseball drama. The playoff spots in both leagues are fairly decided, give or take a bit of wobbliness from the perpetually star-crossed Mariners and Mets. Few division titles are in play – maybe the NL West or AL East, but neither feels all that likely to flip. But that’s okay, because even the teams that are probably out of it can be fun to watch, and even the teams that are already in it still have seeding to vie for. This week, I’ve turned my eye to a few teams with intriguing storylines in the month to come. I’m focusing my baseball viewing on playoff hopefuls, and there’s plenty to like. So with our customary nod to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, let’s talk baseball.

1. McLean (and Horton and Waldrep and…) Fever
One of my favorite baseball archetypes is the shooting star rookie ace. You know what I’m talking about if it’s happened to your team. Some rookie, often a heralded prospect, makes a mid-season debut and just has it. Their fastball? Unbeatable. Their breaking stuff? It just disappears! And that poise – it’s like they’ve been pitching in the majors for years, not weeks.

Whether you want to harken back to Fernando Valenzuela or rely on a more personally resonant example – 2013 Michael Wacha is my touchstone here – there’s just something special about these meteoric talents. At some point, they’re due for a downturn. How could they not be? It happens to everyone eventually. But until then, we might as well enjoy the ride. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about broadcasters’ anxiety about saying “Cam Schlittler,” whether the Mets’ pitching-prospect trio of Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong, and Brandon Sproat will produce more WAR than “Generation K,” a protracted trot by Rafael Devers, whether Framber Valdez intentionally crossed up his catcher, how a lockout looming in late 2026 could affect the coming offseason, Mason Miller’s extra-special immaculate inning, and the team that’s surprisingly pitched the most shutouts, plus a postscript (with Mets-SP projections).

Audio intro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Daniel Leckie, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Schlittler article
Link to Ruocco clip
Link to Generation K wiki
Link to Sproat call-up
Link to Devers trot article
Link to The Athletic on Framber
Link to agent’s comments
Link to Passan’s preview
Link to Langs on Miller
Link to Miller video
Link to team shutouts leaderboard
Link to team goose-egg leaderboard
Link to team pitching WAR
Link to team SP WAR
Link to Foley artist wiki
Link to latest HUAL episode

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On Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani hit the second-hardest pull-side home run by a left-handed batter at PNC Park this season. If that doesn’t sound like it could make your head explode, well, that’s the point. I picked the most boring way to tell the story.

Anyone who saw this particular home run knows that a more accurate representation of the experience would be this: On Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani hit the hardest ball of his entire career, turning around a 99-mph Bubba Chandler fastball on the inside corner and launching a 120-mph missile that skimmed over the Pittsburgh turf and triggered a series of small explosions as it crashed into the right field bleachers. It was the third-hardest-hit ball of the entire 2025 season, and the sixth-hardest home run in the 10-year history of the Statcast era. Read the rest of this entry »

Tanner Bibee is having a down season. While he’s thrown a team-high 154 2/3 innings, the Cleveland Guardians right-hander has a 4.77 ERA and a 4.69 FIP, as well as a career-low 20.6% strikeout rate. Over the previous two seasons — his first two in the majors — he’d tossed 315 2/3 innings with a 3.25 ERA, a 3.54 FIP, and a 25.3% strikeout rate. Something has clearly been amiss.

Bibee believes that he knows what the issue has been; how to right himself during the season is the question at hand. With less than a month left on the schedule and the Guardians still holding out hope for October baseball — their playoff odds are a faint, but not impossible, 4.6% — Bibee can’t wait until the winter to get right. Much for that reason, he worked diligently in a bullpen session on Wednesday afternoon at Fenway Park, after which he expounded on his efforts to return to what he’s been at his best.

———

David Laurila: We talked a few days after you made your big league debut (in April 2023). How do you compare to the pitcher you were then?

Tanner Bibee: “Stuff-wise?”

Laurila: Stuff. How you approach the game. You’re two years older and presumably smarter now.

Bibee: “That doesn’t always mean better. It’s been an interesting first couple of years in the big leagues. I obviously had a lot of success in 2023. I had some success last year after a rough month or two. This year has definitely been… I’ve been through different movement patterns. In ’23, I came in with a really high slot, then kind of slowly got it back down.”

Laurila: Purposefully, or did that happen organically? Read the rest of this entry »

In the eighth inning of Wednesday’s 7-5 loss to the Orioles, Padres reliever Mason Miller threw an immaculate inning — nine pitches, three strikeouts. Immaculate innings are rare, but not that rare. Since 2005, we’ve seen 63 immaculate innings in the majors, so around two or three per season. Miller’s is the fourth of 2025, after Cal Quantrill on May 18, Brandon Young on July 8, and Andrew Kittredge on August 6. Immaculate innings are a special treat we get to enjoy from time to time. They happen infrequently enough that they do genuinely feel special, but not so infrequently that every single one demands an article memorializing the event.

Another special treat that I’ve enjoyed recently is attending a concert with my best friend. We don’t live within driving distance of one another, so due to logistical barriers, we’ve only done this four times in the last 10 or so years. So like an immaculate inning, it’s a cool thing that doesn’t happen very often. What makes our concert history extra special is that twice now touring artists have scheduled shows on my birthday — Tame Impala’s Currents Tour in 2016 and Weird Al’s Bigger and Weirder Tour this year. And what makes Miller’s immaculate inning extra special is that he threw nothing but sliders. Trust me, you’ll see how these two things are connected in a minute, but first more about all those sliders.

If you know anything about Mason Miller, it’s probably that he fires fastballs past hitters at roughly 2,700 giga-miles per hour, which means you know that his primary pitch is not a slider — it’s his fire-breathing fastball. This season Miller is throwing his slider around 45% of the time and his fastball the other 55% of the time, with the very occasional changeup sprinkled in. In his major league career, Miller has appeared in 146 innings in which he has faced at least three batters. He had not gone Oops! All Sliders in any of them prior to Wednesday. And he only topped 65% sliders in four of those innings. His next-highest single-inning slider ratio is 85%, thrown in the final inning of a start against the Mariners in May of 2023. His slider-heavy final frame was the capper on a seven-inning no-hit outing. Read the rest of this entry »

I was doing some research on hitting the ball in the air the other way when I came across this striking leaderboard:

The five guys who hit the ball hardest the other way when they lift it? Four enormous sluggers and Brice Turang. I was overjoyed by this result at first. I wanted to find a hitter who gets to more power to the opposite field than to the pull side. If Turang is hitting the ball this hard to the opposite side, hard enough to number among the top sluggers in the game, surely it’s because of some particular feature of his swing that manifests only to the opposite field. Let’s just add in pull-side average exit velocity and…

Wait, what the?! Turang hits the ball as hard as Alonso? He has more pull power than Kurtz? This merits further investigation. Luckily, FanGraphs has already been all over it. Esteban Rivera wrote about Turang’s increased bat speed all the way back in May. Michael Baumann highlighted Turang as a potential elevate-and-celebrate candidate. Over at Baseball Prospectus, Timothy Jackson noted that Turang’s bat speed gains have stuck. In fact, his 4.2-mph increase in average swing speed is the largest improvement in the sport. All those gains have brought his swing speed all the way up to… the 22nd percentile. Huh? The guys on that leaderboard with him are in the 94th, 94th, 98th, and 92nd percentiles, respectively. Clearly, swinging harder can’t be the only explanation for Turang’s breakout performance. Let’s go a little deeper than “bat faster ball go far,” shall we? Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros are almost definitely going to make the playoffs again. They have a four-game lead in the AL West with 22 games to play, which puts them at roughly 2-to-1 odds in favor of winning the division and 9-to-1 odds in favor of taking part in the postseason in some fashion. That would make nine playoff appearances in a row and 10 in 11 years for the Astros, across multiple roster makeovers, three front office regimes, and three managers. Same as it ever was.

What’s a little unusual about this Astros team is that the pitching staff is a bit unsettled. Not unheard of, to be sure; I remember that 2017 team with a pitching staff that destabilized to total entropy after Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel. But manager Joe Espada is going to have to do a little tinkering here to make sure the pieces all fit. Read the rest of this entry »

For a good chunk of this season, a third MVP award for Aaron Judge looked inevitable. As late as May 21, he still had a batting average above .400 (.402/.491/.755, good for a 236 wRC+). As late as July 25, he had played every game and was on pace for 58 homers. And as late as August 6, he still had a slugging percentage above .700 (.339/.446/.702).

Unfortunately, a right flexor strain suffered while attempting to throw a runner out at the plate on July 22 sent Judge to the injured list a few day later. While he spent only the minimum 10 days on the IL, his bat cooled off, and now he’s neck-and-neck with Cal Raleigh in the AL MVP race. But even if he doesn’t win, the 33-year-old Judge has done something very impressive. In just his 10th major league season, he’s surpassed the JAWS standard for right fielders, which is to say that he’s got a higher score (58.5) than the average enshrinee at the position (56.0).

With that distinction, Judge joins Mike Trout and Mookie Betts among active players to reach the JAWS standard at their positions by the time they fulfilled the Hall of Fame’s 10-year eligibility requirement (playing in parts of 10 seasons, not accruing 10 years of service time). That’s the province of legends; among position players whose careers crossed into the 21st century, the only others to attain that distinction are Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Rickey Henderson, Mike Piazza, Albert Pujols, Cal Ripken Jr., and Alex Rodriguez. That makes Judge an apt choice to lead off the third and final installment of this year’s annual Hall of Fame progress series (pitchers and catchers are here, infielders here). Note that unless otherwise indicated, all WAR figures within refer to the Baseball Reference version, and all statistics are through September 1. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note, the application period for this position is now closed. Thank you for your interest.

FanGraphs is now accepting applications to join our staff as a full-time prospect writer.

The prospect writer will work with lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and other members of the FanGraphs staff to produce organizational top prospect lists, amateur draft coverage, and other minor league and prospect-related content. A successful candidate will be able to evaluate prospects using in-person looks, video scouting, and data. Familiarity and comfort with advanced statistics is a requirement, as is prior scouting or prospect evaluation experience and a firm understanding of the minor league landscape. Just as importantly, we’re looking for a writer who can generate their own ideas, produce lively and engaging prose, and detail what makes a prospect good (or bad) in a way that is educational, accurate, and fun to read. Read the rest of this entry »