“What poor sucker is going to have to pitch in those games?” That’s what Meg Rowley asked last year on an episode of Effectively Wild after MLB announced a two-game series between the Giants and Padres in Mexico City. Those games happened over the weekend, and they lived up to those lofty expectations. Played at an elevation of 7,349 feet — more than 2,000 feet higher than Coors Field, in case you hadn’t been told several times already — they featured 15 home runs, including 11 in Saturday night’s 16–11 offensive explosion. Although Sunday’s game started with yet another home run, this time courtesy of LaMonte Wade Jr., the wind was blowing in, accounting for the paltry total of five homers. So far in the 2023 season, the average game has featured 2.26 home runs. By my calculations, that’s a whole lot less than 7.5 home runs per game. It was so wild that Nelson Cruz hit a triple yesterday. Let me rephrase that: The very nearly 43-year-old Nelson Cruz hit a stand-up triple yesterday. This was not baseball as usual.

All the same, it was extremely fun baseball. Robert Orr of Baseball Prospectus put it best, tweeting, “The game is being played on the surface of the moon.” The ball moved differently out of the pitcher’s hand, off the bat, and coming off the turf. In this article, I’ll be relying on Statcast data, so I should note up front that the stadium was working with a temporary TrackMan setup, rather than the permanent Hawkeye systems installed in all 30 MLB parks. It’s reasonable to expect that the numbers are not quite as reliable as they normally would be, but they’re still plenty convincing. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Rangers shocked the baseball world by signing Jacob deGrom to a five-year, $185 million contract in December, it was with the hope that the 34-year-old righty could steer clear of the type of injuries that limited him to a total of 26 starts in the 2021 and ’22 seasons. But since the opening of camps in February, it’s been a bumpy ride, and that’s carried over into the regular season. On Friday night, for the second time in three starts, deGrom took an early exit due to an arm issue; this time, he’s headed to the injured list, with a diagnosis of elbow inflammation. To call upon an oft-used metaphor: this fancy, expensive, high-performance sports car is once again in the shop.

Facing a Yankees lineup weakened by injuries — no Aaron Judge, no Giancarlo Stanton, no Josh Donaldson — on Friday night, deGrom cruised through the first three innings, retiring all nine hitters on a total of 28 pitches, striking out two and never reaching a three-ball count. He began to labor in the fourth, however. After a six-pitch groundout by DJ LeMahieu, he issued a five-pitch walk to Anthony Rizzo, then went to a full count against Gleyber Torres before getting him to fly out, and finally allowed a two-strike single to Willie Calhoun. Notably, deGrom’s last two pitches to Calhoun — a 96.6 mph fastball taken for a ball and then the 89.4 mph slider that he hit, both of which were several inches outside — were down about three miles per hour relative to their previous offerings of that type.

That sudden drop cued pitching coach Mike Maddux and the team trainer to visit the mound; Maddux soon tag-teamed with manager Bruce Bochy, who did little more than pat a dejected-looking deGrom on the shoulder and send him on his way.

After the Rangers finished off their 5–2 win, the team announced that deGrom had departed due to forearm tightness; the pitcher himself described it as “just some discomfort.” According to general manager Chris Young, an MRI taken the next day showed inflammation, but notably, he made no mention of structural damage, suggesting that whatever the team saw with regards to deGrom’s ulnar collateral ligament, flexor, and whatever else was, if not in mint condition, not a concern at this time. The Rangers elected to put him on the 15-day injured list, though Young downplayed the situation, saying, “[H]e came in today and felt OK, which was a positive, but given how important he is to us and our season, we’re going to play this very cautiously and see how he responds over the next several days to treatment. And then after seven to 10 days, we’ll have a pretty good idea of what the next steps are.” Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re a month into the season and have seen some pretty big swings in the power rankings with plenty of surprises. Here’s how everything stands as we head into the second month of the season.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

After being shut out in back-to-back games and losing their first series of the year to the Astros early last week, the Rays took out all their frustrations on the hapless White Sox, scoring 38 runs in their four-game series. An ugly seven-run meltdown in the ninth by Tampa Bay’s bullpen on Sunday was the only thing keeping them from a sweep over the weekend. That aside, the Rays are leading the league in nearly every significant offensive category; it’s hard not to when Randy Arozarena is doing everything right and Wander Franco has seemingly made the leap to superstardom. Amazingly enough, Rays position players have produced almost double the WAR as the next highest team: 10.9 to the Rangers’ 5.5.

The Pirates enter May with the best record in the National League, something no one could have predicted a month ago. They started off the week with a series win against the Dodgers, then signed their best player, Bryan Reynolds, to an eight-year extension. For the first time in a while, Pittsburgh is playing competitive baseball, and a lot of the underlying metrics believe in this surprising hot start. The Bucs will face a tough challenge to start the month with a series in Tampa Bay followed by a date with the Blue Jays at home. Read the rest of this entry »

If Matt Strahm wasn’t on your radar before this season, I can’t blame you. The left-hander put up increasingly worse results during his four years with the Padres, culminating in a 2021 season lost to injury. He bounced back the following year as a solid middle reliever for the Red Sox, but even so, he was hardly a free agent to watch this winter. He only made headlines because the two-year, $15 million deal he signed with the Phillies was more lucrative than anyone expected for him; an unnamed executive claimed that the contract “destroyed the market” for left-handed relievers.

A few years back, though, Strahm was a top-100 prospect and the most promising name in the Royals’ system. He earned his first feature here at FanGraphs in August 2016 in a piece that called him “a new relief weapon.” He was marvelous that season, posting a 1.23 ERA and 2.06 FIP across 22 innings for the reigning world champs. A year later, he earned another look from the FanGraphs staff, this time as the headlining return in the Trevor Cahill trade between the Royals and Padres. The summer after that, Strahm was once again the star of a FanGraphs story, this one about his work as an opener. Travis Sawchik looked at Strahm’s success and wondered if “Hader Lite” was an appropriate nickname. That’s high praise, indeed.

All this to say, Strahm isn’t just some guy, no matter how much his new nickname (Pastrami, i.e. “Pa-strahm-i”) makes him sound like the manager of an old-time Brooklyn deli or a kid from The Little Rascals. At the same time, he hasn’t been particularly relevant for several years, and as he entered his age-31 season, you might have thought the former top prospect was done making headlines.

Six games into his Phillies career, Strahm demands attention. He ranks 10th among National League pitchers (min. 20 IP) with a 2.31 ERA and among the top 10 in all the major ERA estimators: FIP, xFIP, xERA, and SIERA. The only other NL pitchers who can say the same are Spencer Strider, Zac Gallen, and Max Fried — arguably the early-season frontrunners for the National League Cy Young. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates, you might have heard, are in first place at the end of April. Not only that, they’ve played like a first-place team and then some, outscoring opponents by 48 runs in 29 games. Heading into Sunday, their pitching staff had the second-best ERA and FIP in the National League. Their offense had posted the second-best wRC+ in the NL as well; based on the first month of the season, the only thing fluky about them has been the names on the backs of their jerseys. Maybe they’ll cool off, maybe they won’t, but full credit to them for an exceptional first month of the season.

So why am I singling out David Bednar?

Heading into the season, Bednar was one of the few Pirates who it was safe to assume would be good. Carlos Santana and Andrew McCutchen are big names, but they’re getting up there in years. Bryan Reynolds would be good, most likely, but perhaps not in Pirates colors. But Bednar is a rock. He was an All-Star last year, for God’s sake. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the podcast’s naming conventions, the EW reverse jinx boosting Byron Buxton, the stress of observing Jacob deGrom’s high-wire act, Drew Maggi’s first major league hit (off of Hobie Harris!), high-scoring, high-altitude baseball in Mexico City, MLB editing (and later restoring) an A’s highlight, White Sox fan unrest, Jazz Chisholm Jr. being mic’d up on a broadcast while batting, the standouts toward the top of the combined WAR leaderboard one month into the season, and more, then (1:12:00) Stat Blast about the lowest-career-WAR players ever to lead a team in WAR in one season, the most players ever used in one game at each position, and how the pitch clock has made games not only much shorter, but also much less variable in duration, plus (1:41:32) a Past Blast from 2001 and a few follow-ups and closing thoughts (1:43:39).

Audio intro: Guy Russo, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to deGrom injury info
Link to Ben Clemens on deGrom
Link to Maggi hits video
Link to article on Maggi being optioned
Link to Ben on baseball in Mexico City
Link to Mexico City game stats
Link to Susan’s humidor tweet
Link to Susan’s Mexico City gamer
Link to Susan’s Game 2 gamer
Link to story about A’s fans
Link to tweet about A’s highlight
Link to Ben on in-game interviews
Link to mic’d up Maldonado
Link to White Sox fan rant
Link to James Fegan on Sox fans
Link to James on the Roberts benching
Link to Jay on the White Sox
Link to combined WAR leaderboard
Link to article on Chapman’s defense
Link to FG post on Cole
Link to Cole’s Hicks reaction
Link to Topps NOW cards
Link to Episode 1952 Stat Blast
Link to worst WAR leaders
Link to most players at position links
Link to Ben on the Waxahachie Swap
Link to all-position players
Link to Ben on game times
Link to April 25 games
Link to 1969 time-of-game article
Link to 2001 Past Blast source
Link to contraction plan details
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Twins HR celebration
Link to Sam on WS dogpiles
Link to Sam on walk-off celebrations
Link to 2019 Nats celebrations
Link to 2019 Nats article
Link to 2023 HR celebrations
Link to White Sox walk-off gamer
Link to Passan division tweets
Link to A’s walk-off gamer
Link to A’s winless SP record
Link to Ohtani homer
Link to Cruz triple
Link to CBA/start times thread

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Bill Haselman precipitated a memorable brawl on June 6, 1993. Plunked by a Mike Mussina pitch, the Seattle Mariners catcher charged the mound and proceeded to tackle the Baltimore Orioles right-hander. The melee that followed was a doozy. Tussles involving numerous players took place all around the infield, and when all was said and done, seven players were ejected, and at least four were injured — including one who had played in 1,790 consecutive games.

“It was just a weird situation,” recalled Haselman, three decades later. “Chris Bosio was pitching for us — he’d come back from a broken collarbone — and he threw balls behind Mark McLemore and Harold Reynolds. The first one wasn’t on purpose. The one he threw behind Reynolds [in the bottom of the sixth inning] was on purpose. Reynolds had bunted for a hit against him with two strikes, and he’d also always hit Bosio well [14-for-28 lifetime]. Back then, that’s what you did: you hit a guy. The pitch went behind him.

“We come up in the seventh and Mussina punches out Jay Buhner and Mackey Sasser,” continued Haselman, who is now a coach for the Los Angeles Angels. “I’m up next, and I had an idea of what might happen. I never had any thought of charging the mound — I’d never done it in my life — but for some reason, I did. It was ‘Boom!” Then there was a brawl.”

Haselman had homered off of Mussina earlier in the game, but the erstwhile backstop doesn’t believe that had any bearing on the HBP. Rather, it was because Bosio had thrown behind a pair of Birds. Mussina’s pitch didn’t miss, and that fact that it was a shoulder shot contributed heavily to Haselman’s impromptu mound visit. “I didn’t like it being so high, near my head,” he explained. “That’s why I went out there.” Read the rest of this entry »

In the fourth incarnation of a time-honored tradition that recurs every 500-ish episodes, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley are joined by former co-hosts Sam Miller and Jeff Sullivan, and The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee, to draft assorted things that they like about baseball, followed (1:37:06) by a Past Blast from 2000.

Audio intro: Benny and the Jeffs, “Effectively Wild”
Audio outro: Sam Miller, “Effectively Wild Theme (Ken Maeda’s Nice ‘n’ Easy Remix)”

Link to Episode 500
Link to Episode 996
Link to Episode 1500
Link to Barmes injury article
Link to silly injuries
Link to more silly injuries
Link to even more silly injuries
Link to still more silly injuries
Link to silly injuries again
Link to article on Hill’s dream
Link to Torkelson injury
Link to Sam on “around the horn”
Link to NYT on Mets broadcasts
Link to pitch-clock countdown
Link to SNY “ghost runner”
Link to Blue Jays hug
Link to Aybar/Callaspo story
Link to Grant’s Wills card
Link to minor league team naming
Link to the Murphy card
Link to Grant on the Ripken card
Link to Grant on time between pitches
Link to Conlan’s SABR bio
Link to Sam on the strike zone
Link to no-umps spring game
Link to Giannis video
Link to collected King articles
Link to 2000 Past Blast source
Link to more on the baseball testing
Link to Ben on the Steroid Era
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack

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 Facebook Group
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