“Throw the bums out!” is a rich American tradition. While most used in the context of the messiness of that whole democracy thing, it’s also applicable to sports. When you’re a fan, especially a passionate one, and things are going horribly wrong for your favorite team, there’s a real sense of wanting the perpetrators of these crimes against excellence to be figuratively carted out in tumbrels and to meet their makers like Danton or Robespierre. And heads do roll in baseball when things are going badly, because someone has to take responsibility for a team’s crapitude, and it’s not going to be the team’s owner. Most often, it’s someone public-facing, as fans will not be appeased by the firing of some relatively anonymous staffer in operations. Since general managers and team presidents get first priority to hold the axe (but not always), and individual coaches don’t usually have wide-enough authority to take responsibility for the whole team, that leaves managers as the common sin eaters.

The moment of catharsis happens, and lo and behold, teams play a lot better, vindicating the demise of the ex-manager. It certainly feels that way, and it’s not the craziest idea in the world to think that there’s something to it. While you would expect teams in the midst of a spate of sucking to be underplaying their talent level rather than overplaying it, when you drive by an accident with a car that’s been unfortunately integrated into a telephone pole, it’s also quite likely that the driver had something to do with it.

Two managers have already been fired this season, after their large-payroll teams with championship aspirations got off to awful starts. Surprisingly, Alex Cora was first to go, as Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow canned not just Cora, but also anyone on the coaching staff considered to be one of Cora’s guys, on Saturday night after the team started the season 10-17. Then, on Tuesday, the Phillies fired Rob Thomson after they began the year 9-19, a woeful start that included a 10-game losing streak. Four years ago, Thomson became one of the most successful midseason replacement managers ever, as he steered a sinking Phillies ship back from a 22-29 start all the way to the World Series. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza can’t be comfortable about his job security right now, despite the team’s insistence that his job is safe. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. This column isn’t running every week this year, which means the title is more of a suggestion than a rule. There are some plays from last week, some plays from this week, and future editions will probably break that convention even a little more. I can’t imagine that’s all that big of a deal. After all, “I Liked” is a bigger part of why I enjoy writing this series than “This Week.” So sit back, relax, and check out some of the most delightful baseball happenings of the second half of April. And of course, thanks again to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, the progenitor of the “X Things I Liked This Week” format and my inspiration for this column.

1. Inevitability
If you tune into a baseball broadcast with a runner on third base and less than two outs, you’re liable to hear a discussion of an “undefendable play.” That play is some variation on a safety squeeze: The batter bunts, the runner gets down the line as far as he can safely and waits to see where the bunt is headed before committing, and the defense has very little hope of making a tag play in time. Batters have attempted 24 of these bunts in 2026, and defenders have only retired the lead runner four times. Safety squeezes were equally hard to stop in 2025, this hilarious double play notwithstanding. But maybe they’re even better than those success rates would imply. Maybe there’s some kind of supernatural force that makes safety squeezes work. How else do you explain this nonsense?

Taylor Walls is the most prolific safety squeeze bunter in baseball, and he tried it in extras against the Pirates last week:

Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently Luis Arraez is good at defense now. This took me by surprise, and perhaps it also took you by surprise, or perhaps it is at least taking you by surprise in this exact second, as you ingest this blog. Because if there’s one thing you know about Luis Arraez, it’s probably… well, it’s that he is incredible at contacting the baseball with a bat. But if there’s a second thing you know about Luis Arraez, it’s that he is not very good at defense.

This fact is a key totem in the still-raging Arraez Wars of the 2020s. Those who like baseball played the old-fashioned way insist that he is an MVP-level talent, enraging most contemporary baseball fans who understand that singles are only so valuable, especially for a guy who can’t run well or hold down a defensive position.

When Arraez signed with the Giants this offseason under the condition that he would only play second base, the universal reaction was something like, “OK, well, good luck with that.” Such pessimism was warranted. In 2024 — his age-27 season! — he graded out as -7 outs above average at second base in just 42 games played there; given a full season, he would’ve easily been the sport’s worst defender at the position. In 2025, the Padres punted him down the defensive spectrum to first base. But even at first, Arraez looked nearly unplayable, racking up another -7 OAA at the notoriously easy position. (It’s not that hard, tell ’em Wash, etc.) Those lacking the range to play first base often find themselves consigned to designated hitterdom sooner rather than later.

Not so fast, Arraez said. On February 13, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle published a story with a shocking lede: “Luis Arráez’s fielding at second base is already vastly improved, at least according to San Francisco Giants infield coach Ron Washington, and Arráez agrees.” Slusser cited Arraez’s hard work over the offseason as the catalyst. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing is the new reigning redass of MLB, and the first in-depth he-said, they-said mud-slinging about Craig Breslow and Boston’s coaching cull. Then (35:19) they Stat Blast about the longest streaks of series wins and non-losses to start a season (or at any point in a season), lapping the league in run differential, and batterymates who were previously exchanged in a trade, before bringing on Ben Clemens of FanGraphs (49:36) to talk about whether Munetaka Murakami’s hot start is sustainable (and if so, why he was widely underestimated), how the strike zone has been shrunk and reshaped in the ABS era—somewhat counterintuitively, not just because of overturned calls—and the potential short/long-term effects on scoring.

Audio intro: El Warren, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme 2”

Link to “redass” definition
Link to Carig on “redass”
Link to Rushing timeline
Link to “fishy” comment clip
Link to “fishy” comment article
Link to Rockies celebration
Link to Lee incident clip
Link to Rushing denial
Link to Lee incident article
Link to Amaya incident clip
Link to Hoerner comments
Link to Rushing’s slide
Link to Arraez comments
Link to timeout request
Link to 2015 Williams feature
Link to Breslow/Boston report
Link to fatberg wiki
Link to streaks spreadsheet
Link to Columbus Solons wiki
Link to traded batterymates
Link to Ben’s catchers research
Link to Shackleton wiki
Link to Clemens on Murakami
Link to chase rate leaderboard
Link to Passan on Ohtani in 2018
Link to Passan’s follow-up
Link to Clemens on the strike zone
Link to strike zone definition
Link to Trueblood on the strike zone
Link to Trueblood on challenges
Link to Sam on 3-0 autostrikes
Link to 2025 buffer zone change
Link to ump accuracy over time
Link to Ben on umpire grading
Link to kernel regression wiki
Link to 2024-26 MLB rates
Link to 2025 MLB rates through same date
Link to 2024 MLB rates through same date
Link to highest full-season rates
Link to Federer Hawk-Eye stance 1
Link to Federer Hawk-Eye stance 2

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It’s not obvious why Landen Roupp is good, but it’s probably time to find out.

Roupp’s 2.54 xERA is seventh among qualified starting pitchers. He’s striking out batters, getting groundballs, and working deep into games. He’s tied for 15th in the majors with 0.9 WAR. That’s about 70% of what he was projected for by FanGraphs Depth Charts in the preseason. It’s one of the most surprising performances of April.

Most pitchers “get good” because they miss bats, or attack the zone, or both. That doesn’t apply to Roupp this year. His 25.1% whiff rate is about the median among qualified pitchers, and his 37.1% zone rate is bottom five. Frankly, he doesn’t throw a ton of strikes.

The underlying “stuff” metrics aren’t any more impressive.

Roupp doesn’t throw particularly hard, or display outlier movement, or place near the top of any leaderboard I know to check. And yet, he excels. Where is all that value coming from? Read the rest of this entry »

They say that no news is good news. Google tells me that saying is attributed to James Howell, a 16th-century writer and politician, but I disagree. I attribute it to Sully and Murph, the two imaginary Red Sox fans whose lens I like to interpret Boston sports news through. I mean, COME ON. Last week, Sonny Gray hit the IL with a hamstring injury. Over the weekend, the Sox fired manager Alex Cora of his duties, along with a significant portion of his coaching staff. While the echoes of that momentous decision were still reverberating through the city, there’s now this: Boston placed staff ace Garrett Crochet on the 15-day IL with shoulder inflammation. Woof. The Sox can’t catch a break.

Crochet’s IL placement follows a frustrating start to his season. Through six starts, he’s had three spectacular outings and three clunkers. His last time out, he put together one of his best starts of the year: six innings, seven strikeouts, and no earned runs against the Orioles. But toward the end of that outing, his velocity dipped sharply. Despite sitting 95-96 mph in the early innings, he was down in the 91-93 range by the end of his start.

Crochet told Christopher Smith of MassLive that he felt some fatigue in his shoulder during that start, and that he doesn’t think this is a serious injury. “Was able to grind through (the fatigue) there at the end. It just makes more sense to get ahead of it now so I’m not playing catch-up the rest of the season,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Diego Padres. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Vinnie Pasquantino’s new espresso machine, how the Phillies’ firing of Rob Thomson compares to Boston’s coaching overhaul and how Thomson’s dismissal both does and doesn’t make sense, Mason Miller’s “slump,” Shohei Ohtani’s WAR distribution, Max Scherzer’s major league last gasp, Travis Bazzana’s debut, and how the Mexican League’s Diablos Rojos have handled high altitude. Then (55:48) they talk to Jason Benetti, TV voice of the Tigers and new lead MLB broadcaster for Sunday Night Baseball on NBC, about how he got his new gig, juggling jobs and employers, teaming up with different broadcast partners (including a besuited John Kruk) every week, how NBC approaches baseball, the AL Central’s mediocrity, Kevin McGonigle’s precocious success, Jason’s full-circle Bob Costas story, and Mr. Monopoly vs. Mr. Peanut.

Audio intro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to espresso machine post
Link to Nespresso wiki
Link to Baumann on Thomson
Link to MLBTR on Thomson
Link to Paine on Thomson
Link to Phillies’ record under Thomson
Link to batter WAR under Thomson
Link to pitcher WAR under Thomson
Link to team defense
Link to team run differentials
Link to playoff odds changes
Link to Gelb on Thomson
Link to Cora report 1
Link to Cora report 2
Link to MLBTR on Crochet
Link to Miller story
Link to Soriano story
Link to combined WAR leaderboard
Link to MLBTR on Scherzer
Link to Scherzer’s daughter’s letter
Link to Baumann on Bazzana
Link to MLBTR on Bazzana
Link to 2026 FG top 100
Link to Bazzana at Prospect Savant
Link to list of debut IBBs
Link to The Devil Wears Prada 2
Link to Patrick Brammall wiki
Link to Song Sung Blue
Link to Tenet dialogue story 1
Link to Tenet dialogue story 2
Link to Nolan dialogue explanation
Link to sound mixing story
Link to MLBTR on Bazzana
Link to Mexican League elevations
Link to Octavio Hernández
Link to Coors hangover article 1
Link to Coors hangover article 2
Link to Coors hangover article 3
Link to Benetti at Saberseminar
Link to SBJ profile
Link to NBC Sundays schedule
Link to this Sunday’s schedule
Link to Jason’s broadcast partners
Link to Walton-Benetti story
Link to Kruk’s suit
Link to Curb “middling” scene
Link to Ben on Albert/Stockton
Link to interdivision records
Link to bat weight research
Link to Mr. Monopoly wiki
Link to Mr. Peanut wiki
Link to Mr. Peanut tweet
Link to Benetti’s podcast

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