Roll over Pete Rose, and tell Shoeless Joe Jackson the news. In an historic decision that reversed over eight decades of precedent, on Tuesday commissioner Rob Manfred formally reinstated Rose, Jackson, and 15 other deceased individuals who had previously been placed on the permanently ineligible list for violating Rule 21, which bars players, umpires, and club and league officials and employees from gambling on baseball. The move opens the door for Rose (and Jackson) to be considered for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, but that opportunity won’t come until December 2027 at the earliest. Neither their placement on the Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot nor their election to the Hall is automatic even if they do become candidates, as the Hall’s heavy hand in committee proceedings — particularly with regards to players linked to performance-enhancing drugs — should remind us.

Given the extent to which Rose spent decades lying about his gambling and showing a lack of contrition even after he was banned — to say nothing of the allegations of statutory rape that surfaced in recent years — Manfred’s decision is a bitter disappointment, perhaps even a shock. While his decade-long tenure as commissioner has produced no shortage of grounds for criticism, he appeared to be hyper-conscious when it came to drawing a distinction between Major League Baseball’s recent embrace of legalized gambling, and the lines crossed by those who flouted Rule 21. Last June, Pirates infielder Tucupita Marcano was placed on the permanently ineligible list for making 387 baseball bets totaling $150,000 through a legal sports book, while in February, an arbiter upheld the firing of umpire Pat Hoberg for sharing legal sports betting accounts with a professional poker player who bet on baseball, and for impeding MLB’s investigation. Rose’s gambling, via bets placed through bookies, was illegal at the time as well as completely out of bounds given his role within baseball.

Manfred’s latest move was driven by the Rose family’s petition to remove Rose — who died last September 30 at the age of 83 — from the permanently ineligible list so that he can be considered for election to the Hall. Rather than just revisit Rose’s eligibility, however, the commissioner chose to issue a broader ruling that erased what had previously been a meaningful distinction between a popularly misunderstood “lifetime ban” (i.e, one ending with the death of the banned individual) and a permanent spot on baseball’s blacklist. Created by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1920, the permanently ineligible list was reserved for those found to have gambled on baseball (plus a few who committed other transgressions Landis viewed as grave) from future participation within the game. Read the rest of this entry »

They say that the first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. In that spirit, I’d like to start today’s article with a confession: I have a Trent Grisham evaluation problem. It feels good to say it! I’ve had this problem for years. Ever since he burst onto the scene in San Diego with two straight seasons of good hitting and great fielding, I’ve consistently overestimated his future trajectory. I put him on the first cut of my trade value list every year. I think of him as a starter even when the teams that employ him don’t.

I know all of this. When I’ve looked at Grisham in the past, I’ve seen an excellent player even when others haven’t, and I understand that this bias shades my evaluation. But just when I thought I was kicking the habit, Grisham goes and does something like this and pulls me right back in. Through Monday’s action, the first quarter of the season, he’s hitting a ludicrous .288/.373/.663, and while that’s not any reasonable hitter’s slugging percentage, he’s absolutely tattooing the ball, posting career high marks in barrel rate, hard-hit rate, xwOBACON, xSLG, average exit velocity… You get the idea, he’s just hitting everything very hard at the moment.

Now, as a reformed Grishamite, I have to tell you that hitting the ball hard isn’t one of Grisham’s shortcomings. Not quite like this, of course, because the only person who regularly hits like this is Aaron Judge, but he’s always been a threat to go deep. Grisham might have a low-ish wRC+ over the past three years, but the problem has been the quantity of his hits rather than the quality. Even while he scuffled mightily, he slugged roughly 20 homers per 600 plate appearances. He doesn’t always put the ball in play, but when he does, he makes it count.

Grisham also forces pitchers to come to him. He’s among the league’s best when it comes to chase rate, and he’s walking at a double digit clip. Again, though, I have to tell you that this isn’t new. Grisham’s chase rate is higher than it was last year, and his walk rate is below his career average. Unlike your typical outfielder with a below-average batting line, this isn’t an issue of Grisham never seeing a slider he doesn’t like. He’s quite willing to work a count if pitchers won’t challenge him in the zone. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about an expert’s stance on stretching, whether the White Sox were the funniest team for the new Pope to support, what Paul Skenes signing up for the WBC signifies, an optimistic take on the odds of a lost season, Bud Black’s firing and the dreaded “vote of confidence,” Roki Sasaki’s struggles, a petty Shohei Ohtani, how opposing teams have handled Aaron Judge, a Javier Báez rebound, sliding mitts as fashion accessories, a real-time reaction to a Rich Hill signing, and more, plus (1:36:48) updates and a preliminary postscript on Pete Rose’s reinstatement from the ineligible list.

Audio intro: Ian Phillips, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to NYT on stretching
Link to trigger point info
Link to end range of motion
Link to NYT on Baseball Pope
Link to Phillips on the Pope
Link to 2005 Pope video
Link to 2006 Trump photo
Link to papal infallibility wiki
Link to JLD on the Rizzler
Link to Keke Palmer meme
Link to Skenes WBC story
Link to Hannah on Skenes
Link to The Bandwagon entry
Link to Bud Black quotes
Link to Pirates Shelton statement
Link to MLB.com on Sasaki
Link to pitcher zone rate leaders
Link to pitcher contact rate leaders
Link to Sasaki IL news
Link to latest on Kershaw
Link to Ohtani video
Link to Ohtani story
Link to Hannah on Skenes
Link to hitter zone rate leaders
Link to Clemens on walking Judge
Link to defense vs. Judge
Link to Jay on Aranda
Link to Jay on Báez
Link to sliding mitts story
Link to MLBTR on Hill
Link to FG SP WAR
Link to FG SP projections
Link to Rose news
Link to 2015 Jackson story
Link to Thorn in 2016
Link to Thorn in 2019
Link to 2020 ESPN report
Link to March ESPN report
Link to April ESPN report
Link to calling Trump report
Link to MLB ban wiki
Link to Ben’s Rose obit
Link to Rose death reactions
Link to Rose ban text
Link to Jackson details

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Paul Molitor was a maestro with the bat. Over 21 seasons — 15 with the Milwaukee Brewers and three each with the Minnesota Twins and the Toronto Blue Jays — he recorded 3,319 hits, the 11th-highest total in major league history. Moreover, Molitor’s 605 doubles are tied for 15th most, while his 2,366 singles are 12th most. Walking nearly as often as he struck out (1,094 BB, 1,244 K) the sweet-swinging corner infielder/designated hitter put up a .306/.369/.448 slash line and a 122 wRC+.

Elected to the Hall of Fame in 2004, the St. Paul, Minnesota native went on to manage the Twins from 2015-2018, and prior to that he served as the team’s bench coach and as the hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners. Now an analyst on Twins radio broadcasts, Molitor sat down to talk hitting on a recent visit to Fenway Park.

———

David Laurila: You played [from 1978-1998]. Did hitters and/or hitting change over the course of your long career?

Paul Molitor: “I don’t think as drastically as we’ve seen over the past 10 years or so. I don’t know if we’ve ever been through a period where the percentage of teams’ runs scored were as closely related to how many home runs they hit. The game is always evolving. Breaking down the game in terms of what plays, the numbers show how driving the baseball, getting extra-base hits, [produces runs].

“I do like the old-school. Trying to get hits is still a good thing. You’re obviously going to have guys in your lineup who are more prone to striking out, but they’re going to get you that two- or three-run homer every now and then. And then you have the guys who create the flow on the bases. If you can run the bases, you give yourself more opportunities to get in scoring position. A perfect example would be the 2025 Red Sox. They put a lot of pressure on teams defensively. I think both can work.

“So yeah, there have been changes, but again, not too much when I played. Guys were always trying to figure out how to get better, but the involvement of analytics has changed some of the approach — everything from uppercut swings to how pitchers are throwing the baseball, spinning the baseball. It all plays a part in the counter strategy that hitters are trying to employ.”

Laurila: What about you, personally? Did you change much over the years? Read the rest of this entry »

The Boston Red Sox bandwagon was crowded beyond the capacity limit this offseason, as you’d expect for a team that added Alex Bregman and Garrett Crochet over the winter, and put two near-majors prospects in the top seven of the preseason Top 100. I confess I was a passenger on this bandwagon; it was incredibly sweaty and at least one stranger sat on my lap for a couple stops.

But for all that hype, a quarter of the way through the season the results have been a bit of a let down. Boston is right where it was last year: around .500. Disappointing as that may be, most of the individual performances by Red Sox players have been within the realm of expectation. Surely it’s a bummer that Jarren Duran and Walker Buehler have only been about average this year, for instance, but I don’t know that it’s a monumental shock in either case.

The one player whose numbers are really knocking me out of my chair right now is Tanner Houck. Read the rest of this entry »

You could be forgiven for not noticing Jonathan Aranda until now. The former Top 100 prospect spent the past three years bouncing back and forth between Triple-A Durham and Tampa Bay without ever making more than 143 major league plate appearances in a single season. He missed substantial time due to injuries last year, and the majority of his time in the majors took place in September, once the Rays — a team that doesn’t get a ton of mainstream attention even when they’re successful — were out of the running. This year, the lefty-swinging 26-year-old has taken over the long half of a first base platoon for the Rays, and so far he’s been hitting the stuffing out of the ball.

After a trio of recent three-hit games — May 4 against the Yankees, May 8 against the Phillies, and May 11 against the Brewers — Aranda is currently batting .342/.429/.553, good enough to place among the AL’s top six in all three slash-stat categories. He ranks second in OBP and wRC+ (184), behind only Aaron Judge. His average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, sweet spot rate, expected batting average, expected slugging percentage, and expected wOBA all rank in the 94th percentile or above. Right now, he looks like the Rays’ next All-Star, filling the void left by the trade of Isaac Paredes, their lone 2024 representative at the Midsummer Classic. Read the rest of this entry »

When I go jogging, I wrap a rubber band around my keys so they don’t jingle in my pocket. I put my phone in a different pocket, an extra one I sewed into the front of my shorts so it’s close enough that it won’t tug on the headphone cord. I tuck the ends of my shoelaces in above the tongue so they don’t flop all over the place. I go to all this trouble for two reasons. First, I’m a sensitive soul. Second, I don’t really love running. I love the feeling of having run, but every step is a fight against the voice in my head telling me that I should just stop because running is for suckers. After a mile or so, any one of those slight annoyances – jangling keys, slight tugging on my earbuds, shoelaces flapping against my shoes – will start to bother me so much that I’ll give in to that very obvious truth.

I’m sharing this preamble with you because although I normally write about small, obscure subjects, what I’m writing about today is so small and so obscure that I feel like I owe you an explanation as to why I noticed it at all. As I hope I’ve made clear, I noticed it because I’m weird. Read the rest of this entry »

12:18

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Tuesday chat, and apologies if the non-standard start time threw anybody for a loop; I needed to take care of some business after filing today’s piece a bit later than usual — a quick look at Jonathan Aranda’s breakout that took me a bit longer to complete than I expected because I had colleague Davy Andrews over for beers last night as ww watched some baseball. Anyway, that should go up at 1 pm ET. Yesterday I wrote about Javier Báez’s rebound after two dismal seasons in Detroit. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-new-look-javier-baez-is-fun-again/. On Friday I took a look at some statistical anomalies within extra-innings play thus far this season https://blogs.fangraphs.com/weird-stuff-is-going-on-in-extra-innings-m…

12:18

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show!

12:20

Jay Jaffe: We’re seeing one of the best runs — if not the best — by a hitter in the 21st century. He’s hitting .414/.500/.783 (255 wRC+) six weeks into the season! Caught a few of his at-bats in the last couple of days and it’s like he’s using a pool cue out there to place the ball where the fielders ain’t.

12:22

Jay Jaffe: I’m gonna go with the guy who looks like he might be on his way to his third 10-win season out of four.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani leads the National League in runs. It’s not even close. He has scored 44 times in 2025. That’s 10 more runs than Fernando Tatis Jr., the next highest-scoring NL player. A couple of qualified NL batters haven’t even scored 10 runs yet this season.

Ohtani does not lead the National League in RBI. Not even close. If you visit our leaderboards and sort by RBI, you’ll have to click to the second page of names to find the reigning NL RBI king. Ohtani is tied for 36th in the senior circuit with 21 runs batted in. That’s only one more than the league median for a qualified hitter. Here’s another way to put it: The average NL batter has one RBI for every 8.8 plate appearances. Ohtani has averaged one RBI every 8.7 PA. It’s not so often that Ohtani is on the second page. It’s not so often that he’s a rounding error away from league average.

Runs and RBI might not be the best metrics for evaluating past performance or projecting the future, but they’re still two of the foremost storytelling statistics. So far, the story of Ohtani’s season is that he is scoring runs at an almost unbelievable rate but driving them in at a pedestrian pace. Since the beginning of the Live Ball era in 1920, we have records of 11,326 individual player seasons of at least 500 PA. In just 481 of those seasons, fewer than 5%, did the player finish with a higher run-to-RBI ratio than Ohtani’s current mark of 44:21 (2.095). As per usual, Ohtani stands out even among that small group of players. Take a look at this list of every player from the past decade who’s had a single-season run-to-RBI ratio higher than Ohtani’s 2.095. I’d like you to try and see if maybe, just maybe, you have a keen enough eye to spot the difference between Ohtani and the others: Read the rest of this entry »

When the Rockies fired Bud Black on Sunday, the immediate reaction — a sarcastic “Oh, sure, that’ll solve everything” — missed… not all the point, but some of the point.

Last year, we watched the Chicago White Sox lose more games than any major league team in history, and if the White Sox hadn’t gotten white hot in the last week of the season, the final number would’ve been much more embarrassing than 121. This year’s Rockies are worse. Maybe a lot worse. Read the rest of this entry »