Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2025-26 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Unless otherwise indicated, the projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2026 Steamer600 projections.
Below are ballots for 11 of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of position players, most of whom are infielders. Read the rest of this entry »
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2025-26 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Unless otherwise indicated, the projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2026 Steamer600 projections.
Below are ballots for eight of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of position players, many of whom play the outfield.
When Bo Bichette sprained the posterior collateral ligament of his left knee on September 6 in a home plate collision with Yankees catcher Austin Wells, both the ramifications of his injury and the upcoming World Series were mere abstractions. Bichette remained in that game, postgame X-rays ruled out a fracture, and at the time a cut on his left shin appeared to be the worst of the damage he sustained. While the Blue Jays were not only atop the AL East at the time but also positioned as the league’s top seed, the team — as you’ve heard a million times by now — hadn’t played in a World Series since 1993, and hadn’t won a postseason game since 2016.
Seven weeks later, Toronto is matched up against the defending champion Dodgers, and after missing the final three weeks of the regular season and the Blue Jays’ first two playoff series, the 27-year-old Bichette has been shoehorned into the lineup, albeit under significant limitations. An experiment with him playing second base for the first time in six years has largely worked, and on Tuesday night, Bichette — slotted as the designated hitter with George Springer sidelined by “right side discomfort” following a violent swing in Game 3 — contributed a key hit in a 6-2 victory that helped the Jays rebound from their 18-inning loss the night before and even the World Series at two games apiece.
Bichette’s hit came during Toronto’s four-run seventh inning. Leading 2-1 thanks to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s third-inning homer off Shohei Ohtani, the Jays opened the seventh with a single by Daulton Varsho and a double by Ernie Clement, spelling the end of the two-way superstar’s night on the mound. Lefty Anthony Banda took over for Ohtani, allowed an RBI single to Andrés Giménez, collected a pair of outs that nonetheless brought home Clement with the Blue Jays’ fourth run, and intentionally walked Guerrero. To the chagrin of every Dodgers fan, manager Dave Roberts then called upon right-hander Blake Treinen, who entered having allowed 14 earned runs in 11 2/3 innings over the past seven weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2025-26 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Unless otherwise indicated, the projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2026 Steamer600 projections.
Below are ballots for 11 of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of pitchers, including a starter and several relievers with closer experience. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben and Meg banter about and draft their favorite 18 moments (one for each inning!) from an endlessly entertaining, and almost just plain endless, World Series Game 3.
After a marathon Game 3 on Monday night (and into Tuesday morning), both the Blue Jays and the Dodgers were hoping for length from their starters in Game 4. The Dodgers looked more likely to get it. Toronto starter Shane Bieber lasted just 3 2/3 innings in Game 4 of the ALCS, his most recent start. In fact, he went more than five innings just once over his past four starts, running a 4.96 ERA over that stretch. Los Angeles starter Shohei Ohtani, well, he’s Shohei Ohtani. He had gone exactly six innings in each of his last three starts. He had allowed just three total runs over his past five appearances for an ERA of 1.01. Had Ohtani gone just six innings and no more on Tuesday night, Game 4 might have gone very differently. Instead, the Blue Jays offense exploded for four insurance runs in the seventh inning, and with a convincing 6-2 win, they pulled the World Series into a 2-2 tie.
After the prolonged weirdness of Game 3, Game 4 looked much more familiar. The starters struggled a bit early, then settled down. One team asked a little too much of its starter, then paid the price for bringing in the wrong reliever. You know, like a baseball game. The momentum certainly looked to belong to the Dodgers. They were at home, they’d won two in a row, and they had Ohtani lined up to pitch coming off some of the best performances of his unbelievable career. After a swing during Game 3 resulted in an injury that walks like an oblique strain and talks like an oblique strain and is currently being referred to as right side discomfort, the Blue Jays were without George Springer, both their leadoff man and their best hitter during the regular season. They had taxed their bullpen more thoroughly on Monday, and they had endured the psychic toll of losing that 18-inning marathon. Luckily for the Blue Jays, momentum is mostly a construct.
The Dodgers kicked off the scoring in the bottom of the second. After a one-out walk by Max Muncy, Tommy Edman ripped a single up the middle. Knowing that Daulton Varsho’s surgically repaired right arm is particularly weak, Muncy didn’t hesitate, charging around second (and nearly slipping and falling when he tried to stick the landing on a pop-up slide into third). It’s always a little bit fun to be a baserunner on the base that you’re entrusted to defend. You’re in your normal spot, but the perspective is totally different. It’s kind of like when you were a kid and your parents let you bring your sleeping bag into the living room so that you could go camping in your own house.
Sorry, where were we? The Dodgers had runners on the corners with one out, and Enrique Hernández did what Enrique Hernández does in October. He lifted a sacrifice fly into right field to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. The first time through the lineup, Bieber had allowed one run, one hit, and two walks. He had struck out no one. Three of the Dodgers’ seven batted balls were hard-hit.
But Ohtani was about to run into his own trouble. He only had one strikeout the first time through the lineup, and his velocity was down compared to his regular season average (though manager Dave Roberts would say during an in-game interview that Ohtani was intentionally throttling back). He hadn’t allowed much hard contact, but that changed quickly. In the top of the third, Nathan Lukes tomahawked a high fastball into right field for a one-out single. Ohtani then hung a sweeper high and right over the middle to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is not, strictly speaking, the kind of person to whom you want to hang a sweeper high and right over the middle. Guerrero unloaded on the cement mixer. The vicious swing sent his helmet rattling around atop his head and the baseball beyond the left field wall to give the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead:
Both pitchers started to figure it out. Ohtani allowed just one baserunner from the fourth inning to the sixth, at one point striking out four straight Blue Jays swinging. Bieber allowed just two baserunners from the third to the fourth, but he ran into trouble in the sixth. Freddie Freeman led off with a laser down the first base line that Guerrero couldn’t quite corral on the short hop. Will Smith followed up with a sharp lineout to center. After a couple hard-hit balls, manager John Schneider came out to the mound, but Bieber convinced him that at just 80 pitches, he was good to stay in the game. Teoscar Hernández immediately made him look like a liar, sending the 81st pitch into center for a line drive single. The Dodgers had runners on first and second with one out, and Schneider came back for the ball.
Left-handed rookie Mason Fluharty appeared for the third time in the series, and he slammed the door on the potential rally, inducing a fly out from Muncy and striking out Edman swinging. That closed the book on Bieber, who finished the night with one earned run over 5 1/3 innings. Despite walking three, allowing eight hard-hit balls, and striking out just three, he allowed just four hits and would end up with the win.
Ohtani’s night ended soon after Bieber’s. Varsho led off the seventh with a single to right field, and then Ernie Clement ripped a double off the wall in left center. Varsho hesitated for a moment as he rounded second base to make sure that the ball wouldn’t be caught, and ended up at third. Roberts called on Anthony Banda to get the Dodgers out of the jam. Although he’d retired 11 of the past 12 batters before the seventh inning, Ohtani’s night was over (at least, as a pitcher).
With runners on second and third and no outs, the Dodgers brought their infield in. The Blue Jays just needed to get the ball into the outfield to score a run. Andrés Giménez did just that, reaching out on a slider and dumping a single into left. The Blue Jays led 3-1 and still had runners on the corners. After Isiah Kiner-Falefa lined out (temporarily into a double play, until the call was overturned on replay), Schneider sent Ty France up to pinch-hit for the left-handed Lukes. France knocked in a run with a weak inside-out grounder to second base. That closed the book on Ohtani, who was credited with four earned runs over six innings. He struck out six, while allowing six hits and one walk. The Blue Jays had tacked on two big insurance runs to bring their lead to 4-1.
With a pair of right-handed hitters in Guerrero and Bo Bichette due up and the game threatening to get away from the Dodgers, Roberts intentionally walked Guerrero and pulled Banda. To the dismay of Dodger fans everywhere, he called upon Blake Treinen, who came into the game with a 9.00 ERA this postseason. Bichette greeted him with a rocket off the left field wall to score Giménez, and Addison Barger followed up with a single into left to score Guerrero. The haters said he couldn’t do it, and they were right. The Blue Jays led 6-1:
From there, Chris Bassitt held the Dodgers scoreless in the seventh and eighth. Louis Varland made things interesting, allowing Edman to cut the lead to 6-2 on an RBI groundout before retiring the final two Dodgers. Four Blue Jays – Guerrero, Lukes, Barger, and Clement – finished the night with two hits, while the Dodgers combined for just six hits total. They’ll still have home advantage in Game 5. With two-time Cy Young Blake Snell lined up to face rookie Trey Yesavage, they’ll have the starting pitching advantage as well. But after four games, this World Series is looking mighty even, and it’s now assured to end back in Toronto.
I honestly have no idea how many tag plays take place over the course of the average baseball game, but whatever that number may be, it felt like Game 3 of the World Series quadrupled it at the very least. We saw seven players thrown out on the bases. We saw challenges on plays at all four bases. We saw baserunning blunders, huge throws, and perfect relays. We saw aggressive sends that turned out well, and aggressive sends that led to players being thrown out at the plate by laughable margins. We saw pop-up slides that flew too close to the sun. We got a tutorial on the home plate blocking rule. We saw maybe the first ever umpire-induced pickoff. We saw the next day’s starting pitcher pull up with a leg cramp while running the bases in the bottom of the 11th inning. We saw multiple players get tagged out by a glove that caught them squarely in the Jonas Brothers. We saw the game’s 469th-fastest runner come in as a pinch-runner for the 606th-fastest runner. I could keep going.
At this point, I should mention that the litany you just read may or may not be my fault. Somewhere around the seventh inning, Meg Rowley asked me whether I might like to write about anything I’d seen during the game. I said there had been a couple interesting tag plays, so maybe it would be fun to write about them. Go back and reread the first sentence of this article. That’s when I wrote it, in the seventh inning, before like a dozen other absurd baserunning plays happened. This is how the baseball gods punish hubris, and there’s no way to delve into all these plays in one article. Even if there were, I wouldn’t be in any shape to write it, because I watched the entire 18-inning game and got like four hours of sleep last night (read: this morning). Instead, we’ll be taking a jogging tour of the tag play highlights, pointing out a few fun facts and then skating on to the next destination. Read the rest of this entry »
John Schneider loves intentional walks. He intentionally walks Aaron Judge more than anyone else. He intentionally walked Cal Raleigh with the bases empty in the ALCS. So he must have felt very strange when the first two games of the World Series passed without a single intentional walk of Shohei Ohtani, a man who has been intentionally walked repeatedly this postseason even though he was mired in a deep slump early on. Now that he’s hotter than the sun, Schneider was no doubt ready to go to his preferred tactic as soon as the situation presented itself.
And oh, did it present itself! Yesterday, the Dodgers and Blue Jays played 18 innings to settle Game 3. Ohtani opened the game with a double, a home run, another double, and another home run, the last hit a game-tying solo shot in the seventh. That second homer set up a perfect storm. Extra innings with the Dodgers batting in the home half meant that Ohtani represented the tying run every time he came to the plate the rest of the way, and you don’t have to roll out the red carpet for Schneider; he’s always ready to deploy some tactics. Ohtani had five more plate appearances in the game; Schneider intentionally walked him in four of them. I did the math to see whether those were good decisions, and how much they affected the outcome of the game. Read the rest of this entry »
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2025-26 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Unless otherwise indicated, the projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2026 Steamer600 projections.
Below are ballots for 10 of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of relievers and starters, including some of the top bullpen arms on the market and a pair of future Hall of Famers. Read the rest of this entry »
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2025-26 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Unless otherwise indicated, the projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2026 Steamer600 projections.
Below are ballots for nine of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of infielders that includes some notable postseason performers and former All-Stars, as well as a three-time batting champion. Read the rest of this entry »
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