It’s a busy time for sports right now. The NBA Finals have been incredible. The Stanley Cup Finals have been nearly as good. The World Cup just started; Team USA is playing tonight. With this embarrassment of entertainment riches, regular season baseball might seem to temporarily lose a little bit of its luster. But even if you want to watch those other great spectacles, I implore you to set aside a few hours of your life this weekend for baseball. For a limited time only, they’re playing on the moon.

OK, fine, maybe not the actual moon. There are any number of logistical and physical challenges involved in that. But the first half of the six-game Las Vegas series has been the next best thing, and before the A’s play the Rockies this weekend, I’m hoping to convince you to watch it. I wouldn’t want my baseball to always look like this, but in small doses, it’s absolutely captivating.

The Athletics, currently playing in the minor league stadium of the Sacramento River Cats, have taken up an even briefer temporary residence in the stadium of their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators. It’s a preview of sorts – in advance of their scheduled 2028 move to Sin City, the team is playing a six-game series there. And boy, does the ball carry in the desert.

Las Vegas sits only 2,000 feet above sea level. That sounds like nothing – Coors Field, the archetypical high-altitude ballpark, is famously a mile high. But the major league stadium at the second-highest altitude is Chase Field in Arizona, and it’s only 1,000 feet above sea level. That elevation helps the ball carry, but it’s only one of the many reasons that offense is high here. For one thing, it’s hot. High temperatures are forecast to exceed 100 degrees this weekend, with lows in the mid-80s providing little respite even at night. The air is as dry as it gets; Las Vegas has a lower average relative humidity than any big league city, and it’s particularly dry in the middle of summer. It’s an outdoor park, so there’s no escaping the hot, arid conditions. The PCL was the homer-happiest minor league in 2025, and Vegas was the homer-happiest park in the PCL. Read the rest of this entry »

Manny Machado was in the news last week for what got called an anti-analytics rant. This would’ve been a bigger deal 10 or 15 years ago, when front offices were still coming to grips with empirical study as a part of scouting and player development, but that battle’s over now. The nerds are here.

Machado said the game’s getting harder to play, and that there are “too many stats out there. Too many stats, way too many numbers. I don’t even know half of the stuff that goes up there. I look at the board sometimes, and I even ask some of the guys, like, ‘What is WCCVBB, whatever it is?’… It’s crazy to even keep up with.”

As someone who makes his living using WCCVBB, I think Machado’s actually got a point here. I’m an analyst with a social science background: There is no stat so newfangled I won’t poke it to see if it’ll teach me — or better yet, you, the fans — something new about the game. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the listener response to their conversation with Adrian Chiles, newly minted major leaguer LuJames Groover, and a big Giants comeback (in defiance of the team’s historically walk-averse ways), then (21:25) answer listener emails about how long-term team outlooks factor into present-day disappointment levels, spectacle vs. analysis in closer-entrance pageantry, whether umps should be able to challenge themselves, how future sub-Ohtani two-way players will be perceived, the entertainment value of human managers and hypothetical robo-managers, a pre-playoffs rest period, and stats used as verbs, plus Stat Blasts (1:27:23) about teams that turned deficits into large leads, Paul Skenes and glad-to-see-him-go games, and the Angels’ used-to-be-good guys.

Audio intro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Episode 2489
Link to Groover debut story
Link to 2025 Groover story
Link to 2025 Groover clip
Link to Groover shirt story
Link to Eldridge game story
Link to Eldridge game box score
Link to ultimate slams story
Link to Giants BB%+
Link to Krukow/Kuiper clip
Link to Knicks comeback story
Link to Ben on Larry David
Link to Burnes setback story
Link to Crochet setback story
Link to Crochet setback confusion
Link to Michael’s BOOG intro
Link to BOOG pod appearance
Link to Jay on the White Sox
Link to Duran entrance video
Link to story about ballpark loudness
Link to call on Contreras
Link to Miller hot-mic moment 1
Link to Miller hot-mic moment 2
Link to Miller hot-mic moments article
Link to Sam on the Umpire Manual
Link to info on umps and HFA
Link to Sam on the two-way balance
Link to two-way draft prospects story
Link to “obligate” definition
Link to Grandstand Managers Night
Link to Ballers’ AI manager
Link to Twitch Plays Pokémon
Link to moonwalking robot
Link to running robot
Link to kicking robot
Link to Laws of Robotics
Link to Deep Thought wiki
Link to Marvin robot
Link to Grant on mascot pants
Link to NBA Cup
Link to Paine on the NBA Cup
Link to more Paine on the NBA Cup
Link to Knicks banner news
Link to Schlittler quote
Link to Shakespeare usage shifts
Link to Bulls vs. Tides story
Link to big comebacks data
Link to harmonic mean wiki
Link to listener emails database
Link to Skenes game story
Link to more on Skenes game
Link to bullpen blowups data
Link to Mancini comeback story
Link to past Angels Blasts
Link to used-to-be-good guys data
Link to Boog/Mancini survival story

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Dustin May’s 2026 season did not begin in auspicious fashion. He was chased in the fourth inning in each of his first two starts with the Cardinals, facing the Rays at home on March 29 and then the Tigers in Detroit on April 4. On the heels of his rough 2025 season, it was fair to wonder if St. Louis had grossly miscalculated by signing the 28-year-old righty to a one-year, $12.5 million deal. Since then, however, May has gone on a roll, putting together perhaps the best run of his injury-wracked career and placing himself among the game’s top starters during that span.

On Tuesday at Citi Field, May spun six scoreless innings against the Mets, holding them to four hits and one walk while striking out six. It was his first scoreless start since last August 12 while with the Red Sox, and with it, he collected his first win since April 21. Though he’d averaged a crisp six innings with a 3.86 ERA and a 3.03 FIP over his previous seven starts, the Cardinals had scored just 19 runs and posted a 2-5 record in those games.

Undoubtedly, the most frustrating of those strong outings was on May 27 in Milwaukee. May had held the Brewers hitless for seven innings, striking out nine and allowing only two baserunners; he hit Jake Bauers with a pitch in the second inning, and catcher Pedro Pagés interfered with Sal Frelick in the fourth. May had thrown just 72 pitches to that point, giving him a real shot at finishing the job without too much concern about pitch count. Alas, Garrett Mitchell led off the eighth with a double just over the head of left fielder Bryan Torres as he raced into the left-center gap, and then Luis Rengifo bunted for a base hit before manager Oliver Marmol called for the bullpen. The Brewers, who trailed 1-0 at the time, plated both runs against reliever JoJo Romero, and held on to win 2-1. Read the rest of this entry »

11:59

Dan Szymborski: We seem to be having technical issues

11:59

Dan Szymborski: Nobody can log in and ask questions.

11:59

Dan Szymborski: And I tried it myself!

12:00

Dan Szymborski: Unless there’s a fix, we may need to 86 the chat this week. Unless people want to hang around as I share my idle musings about whatever stupid thing I’m thinking about currently.

12:01

Dan Szymborski: (And no, people should not want to hang around for that)

12:02

Dan Szymborski: If you’re reading this, hit refresh and it shoudl work now!

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The Closer Depth Chart is one of the longest-standing features at RosterResource, making its FanGraphs debut at the beginning of the 2021 season. Prior to this season, the Closer Depth Chart looked much as it did in that intro article from five years ago, but there have been some key improvements this year. Here’s a walkthrough of what it’s got, both new and old, from left to right:

Criteria for Included Pitchers, Plus Our Process

When the Closer Depth Chart first launched, we only included the top five or six relievers per team, plus those on the injured list. But with RosterResource often taking a “more is more” approach, we’ve begun including all active relievers in a team’s bullpen, plus the injured ones. The Projected Role column matches that shown on the RosterResource team page, including co-closers or closer committees, a situation the A’s are currently working with:

A reliever may also have a green triangle next to his name (denoting a Reliever On The Rise) or a red square (denoting the opposite, an arm who is On The Hot Seat):

A lot of what we do at RosterResource has a certain level of subjectivity to it, and none is more subjective than trying to classify relievers, whether by the name of their role or if they ought to be considered a Reliever On The Rise or On The Hot Seat. Managers have to tell you their lineups or starting rotations; they never have to name a closer or formally move someone up or down in the bullpen hierarchy. As such, we can only go off a manager’s actions while also keeping in mind that roles are fickle, or that a pitcher simply might not be available for a game or has an undisclosed ailment that isn’t quite enough to send him to the IL. This is all about pointing you in the right direction, not being an objective truth.

Usage for the Last Six Days

Panning rightward now, we do see an objective truth: how the bullpen has been used in the last six days. From here you can easily see that Louis Varland (a) pitches a ton and (b) pitches in a very important role when he does, as evidenced by the three saves and a win in his last four appearances entering Wednesday. But new to 2026, we’ve got more information when hovering over an appearance’s cell:

This additional data helps to better summarize and contextualize a pitcher’s outing beyond a raw pitch count and result. Knowing if a pitcher had an “up-down’ (an appearance spanning multiple innings) can inform an educated guess of his availability for the next day; having an awareness of the combination of innings a pitcher appeared in and the leverage index aids in clarifying his role.

Farthest to the right of the usage section are the totals, simply the sum of the innings pitched and pitches thrown over the last six days. Since managers and pitching coaches will weigh recent usage beyond just the prior game when making decisions, that’s another good data point to have.

Stats

We’ve always had a slew of stats on the Closer Depth Chart, but there are even more this year. New to the party are swinging strike rate (SwStr%), strikeout rate (K%), walk rate (BB%), shutdowns (SD), and meltdowns (MD). Shutdowns are outings worth at least 6% WPA; meltdowns are outings worth a WPA of -6% or worse. With all those new stats, we needed more room, so there’s now a toggle between Results stats and Arsenal stats, accessed by hovering:

Clicking over to Arsenal showcases a pitcher’s average velocity for his four-seam fastball and/or sinker, as well as the Stuff+ for his entire repertoire, even the rare few who throw knuckle curves or forkballs. (Fun fact, nobody currently in a big league bullpen throws a forkball, but the infrastructure is ready to handle when one arises!)

This year’s additions to the Closer Depth Chart make it more powerful than ever, but I’m never closed off to making more, and I love listening to suggestions. As ever, you’re welcome to offer feedback here, find me on Twitter or Bluesky, or email us at rosters@fangraphs.com.

Hello. While on paternity leave, I kept a journal about baseball and my daughter, who is not named Derek Jr., but who will henceforth be referred to as Derek Jr. You can read all of the entries here.

May 6
The exhaustion has finally hit.

This might sound odd, but I was never all that worried about the exhaustion. I‘ve suffered from insomnia since I was 18, and it has darkened every corner of my adult life. My first job out of college was as a marketing assistant at a law firm. Once, after a particularly rough stretch of sleepless nights, an associate came into my office (a closet that I shared with a janitor) to assign me some work. After one look at my ravaged face, a knowing grin spread across his. He clearly had more fun than I did when he was 23, and he assumed that I’d been out all night partying. “I remember those days,” he said wistfully. Imagining the debauchery that could have left me so haggard was bringing him so much joy that I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. Not only had I not gone out and painted the town red last night, I had gone to bed before the sun had even gone down, hoping that if I stayed in bed for 12 hours, maybe I could scrape together eight hours of sleep in bits and pieces. Needless to say, it hadn’t worked.

All of this is to say that the exhaustion is crushing, but I feel like I’m about as accustomed to it as you can get. Earlier this year, after I suffered a particularly rough night, my wife would sometimes say, “We need to figure out your sleep before the baby comes.” I disagreed. I figured that I’d be so very tired that it wouldn’t matter. I’d travel so far into that undiscovered country that even the exhaustion wouldn’t be able to tag along, and I’d just pass out whenever the opportunity presented itself. That’s pretty much what happened — for the first month anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

Not very much has gone right in Cincinnati this season. Having fought through injuries, slumps from key hitters, and total no-shows from their closer and the back end of their rotation, the Reds sit just under .500, which in the surprisingly competitive NL Central is good for last place. It’s not how the Reds wanted to build on their playoff appearance a year ago.

One of the few bright spots has been JJ Bleday, who’s hitting .270/.363/.568. Despite appearing in just 39 of Cincinnati’s 67 games, he’s third on the team with 11 home runs and tied for fourth in total bases.

Unlike other Reds standouts, like Sal Stewart and Chase Burns, Bleday wasn’t really expected to do much. The Reds picked him up off the street for $1.4 million after the A’s non-tendered him last November. I was about to make a joke about what it says that Bleday couldn’t even stick in Sacramento, but the A’s are actually pretty deep at his position. At any rate, he was just below replacement level in 98 games in 2025 — that’ll get you non-tendered anywhere. Read the rest of this entry »

Taylor Ward has made a big league career out of lifting and pulling the ball. Drafted in the first round in 2015, he didn’t find a full-time role in the majors until 2022, but he ran with the job as soon as he got it. Despite unexciting bat speed, Ward consistently ambushed fastballs and tucked them over the left field fence. He clobbered 98 home runs from 2022-25 for the Angels, posted a 119 wRC+, and racked up 11 WAR over the span, one of the team’s best players. Then he got traded to the Orioles this winter with only one year left until free agency, and decided to completely remake his game.

I’m only partially kidding. See, Ward might have made his name as a 25-homer-a-year type, but he’s abandoned that style completely in Baltimore. He’s launched only three long balls this season, and his barrel rate, average exit velocity, and fly ball rate are all career lows. His average bat speed is down 1.5 miles an hour, now in the fifth percentile league-wide. Even when he does get the ball in the air, he’s pulling it at a career-low rate; only 19.4% of his elevated contact goes to left field. That’s why his isolated power has declined from .192 as an Angel to .103 as an Oriole. And oh yeah, he’s having one of the best seasons of his career.

That’s right – Ward might not be hitting for power, but he’s getting on base at a preposterous clip. His 18.8% walk rate is third in baseball. His .403 OBP is fifth. He’s not barely surviving on some weird BABIP spike or doing anything visibly unsustainable. He just started swinging slower and making more contact, more or less, and the results have been downright incredible; his 126 wRC+ would be the second-best mark of his career if he can sustain it the rest of the season. Read the rest of this entry »