FanGraphs Baseball

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the end of Ben’s jury duty and Meg’s first colonoscopy, then discuss an investigation into Dodgers owner Mark Walter’s finances, Roki Sasaki’s big glove, Munetaka Murakami’s performance against good velocity, a squirrel sighting (and top prospect Max Clark’s arrival) in Detroit, baseball’s animal kingdom, who gets to claim Jimothy, the frustrating Mariners, Curtis Mead’s im-mead-iate injury, and pre-deadline unrest in Philly. Then (1:05:16) FanGraphs contributor Kiri Oler joins to preview the Women’s Pro Baseball League’s inaugural season and consider its prospects for long-term success.

Audio intro: Daniel Leckie, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: Liz Panella, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to WSJ on Walter’s finances
Link to WSJ on Walter’s stroke
Link to Ben on the Dodgers in 2015
Link to WSJ on Sasaki
Link to June FG post on Sasaki
Link to Roki’s rolling WAR
Link to Roki’s four-seamer speed by start
Link to Murakami vs. velo article
Link to extended squirrel video
Link to MLB.com squirrel article
Link to BP squirrel article
Link to PAWS page
Link to animal appearances video
Link to MLB.com on Clark’s call-up
Link to BP on Clark’s call-up
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to Jimothy wiki
Link to M’s Jimothy promotion
Link to Trash Pandas’ Jimothy promotion
Link to food guarding info
Link to Mead injury article
Link to Mead recovery report
Link to BP IL Triage tool
Link to Gelb on the Phillies
Link to Paine on the Phillies
Link to WPBL wiki
Link to Kiri on the WPBL teams
Link to Kiri on WPBL managers
Link to Kiri’s 2025 pod appearance
Link to Kiri on other women’s leagues
Link to WPBL team pages
Link to AP on the WPBL
Link to ESPN’s WPBL press release
Link to 2025 WPBL announcement
Link to Women’s Baseball World Cup article
Link to Ben on the OWL
Link to A League of Their Own scene
Link to Roki game story

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On Wednesday afternoon, Tarik Skubal threw what looked for all the world to be his last pitch as a member of the Detroit Tigers.

Skubal fanned six Orioles — including his 1,000th career strikeout — and held the Orioles scoreless into the seventh inning. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, wanting his ace to finish on a valedictory note, let Skubal pitch himself into some trouble in the seventh, but lifted him once Leody Taveras singled in Baltimore’s first run. Read the rest of this entry »

As August 3 nears, we are taking a fresh look at the farm systems of some of the clubs we expect to be buyers at the trade deadline. These teams are both contending for a playoff berth and in position to make a buyer’s-style trade for a star big leaguer, the kind that will likely require parting with a top farmhand or two. Today, I’m covering the Philadelphia Phillies.

In tandem with an evaluation of the team’s needs and deadline posture, I’ve updated Philly’s prospect list to account for graduations, incorporate the team’s new draftees, and reflect developments on the farm. The Phillies have a top-heavy system with a few key, arrow-up pitching prospects. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Red Sox decided to go for it. They traded exciting young pitcher Connelly Early to Washington in exchange for less-exciting, less-young, but playing-very-well-right-now infielder Curtis Mead. The move elicited strong reactions. Early is a genuinely promising lefty starter who will be under team control until 2032. Mead is only one year older with one less year of team control. He’s had a wonderful breakout season at the plate, and his offensive profile fits Fenway Park beautifully. But he’s a poor defender whose track record of success at the plate is extremely short. Even Boston’s chief baseball officer Craig Breslow went out of his way to spell out exactly why the team pulled the trigger, telling reporters, “Our goal wasn’t to win the trade. It was to make the team better.”

I had my own strong reaction to the deal, but that was mainly because I really wanted to be the one to write it up so I could title the article, “Red Sox Go For It Now by Giving Up Early.” But the reactions to the deal are now more or less irrelevant. Mead did make the team better, but for a very, very short time. He struck out in his first plate appearance with the Red Sox, then got hit by a pitch and broke his wrist in his second. According to Baseball Prospectus’ Recovery Dashboard, the average recovery time for a fractured wrist is 52 days and the median is 47. Mead may or may not return before the regular season ends, but he’s certainly not going to be powering the Red Sox down the stretch, and they’re already out looking for more infield help.

You have to feel for Mead. He was in the midst of a true breakout season. After putting up a combined 0.1 WAR in his first three major league seasons, he was already at 1.6 this year. He was traded to a contender that also happened to be the hottest team in baseball. What an exciting time for the 25-year-old, and then one pitch took it all away.

You can also imagine how Boston’s front office must feel after putting in all the work to make this trade happen. Breslow stuck his neck out for this high-risk, win-now move, and just like that, it’s gone. I don’t think there’s much I could do to cheer up Mead right now, but I can take a crack at cheering up Breslow. I’d like to remind him that although this may seem like the worst case scenario for his bold challenge trade, things could have gone much, much worse. In order to see that, you just have to look at things like a chief baseball officer, removing the human element and focusing solely on pure, unadulterated on-field production. Let’s lift our spirits by acting like soulless robots. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The Blue Jays came agonizingly close to winning the World Series last fall, but this season has been a much different story. They haven’t had a winning record since April 4, and haven’t played above .500 in any full month besides May (15-14). While they clawed their way back to .500 on May 29 (29-29) and June 22 (39-39), an 11-20 skid since then has buried them in the AL East cellar, 14 games behind the Rays. Ten American League teams either occupy a playoff spot or are within 2.5 games of one at this writing, but the Blue Jays aren’t one of them; they’re 5.5 games out of the third Wild Card spot, with playoff odds around 7%. As the August 3 trade deadline approaches, several of their players could be on the move to contenders and are worth a closer look.

So little has gone right for Toronto this year. Last season, the team had four regulars with a wRC+ of 116 or higher in George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Alejandro Kirk, each of whom topped 3.0 WAR, as did defensive whiz Ernie Clement. Four part-timers (Joey Loperfido, Davis Schneider, Daulton Varsho, and Tyler Heineman) also met that offensive threshold. But Bichette, Heineman, and Loperfido are now elsewhere, and the rest have been far less productive. No Blue Jay with more than 25 plate appearances has a wRC+ higher than newcomer Kazuma Okamoto’s 113, while Guerrero, Kirk, Schneider, and Varsho are all below 100. Vladito even landed on my Replacement-Level Killers list, which isn’t great news for a player whose contract runs through 2039. Okamoto is the only Blue Jays position player on pace for 3.0 WAR. Ouch.

In 2025, the Blue Jays’ offense ranked second in the AL in scoring and WAR, and third in wRC+, but this year, the team has fallen to second-to-last in scoring and WAR, and last in wRC+:

By comparison, Toronto’s run prevention has been nothing to write home about, whether we’re considering last year (4.45 runs per game, 10th in the league) or this year (4.50 runs per game, ninth). It’s easy to forget that the club’s near-miss happened despite a makeshift October rotation that included just one of the three pitchers who took at least 18 starts for the team (Kevin Gausman) and featured a rookie with three regular-season starts (Trey Yesavage), a deadline acquisition who had just returned from Tommy John surgery (Shane Bieber), and a 40-year-old veteran who missed the first three months of the season with right thumb inflammation (Max Scherzer). Read the rest of this entry »

I came into this week with a ton of trade deadline hype built up in my brain just waiting to spill onto the page the first time I had a deal to analyze. I had some clever turns of phrase, some bon mots (or “annoying puns,” if you’re not into it), and next week, you’ll surely get to hear those. But they’re staying in the proverbial writer’s quiver today, because the trade I’m analyzing is more of a mystery than a blockbuster. The trade in question: the Rangers acquired Logan O’Hoppe and Chase Silseth from the Angels in exchange for Low-A infielder Angel Arredondo, as Jeff Passan first reported.

The Rangers have lurched into the AL West lead in recent weeks, turning aside the equally-scuffling A’s and Mariners while trying to hold off the surging (surging to a .500 record, to be fair) Astros. They have one of the worst catching situations in the majors – the 0.2 WAR their catchers have accrued is 27th in baseball. So surely, that’s the play here, I innocently thought as I saw this trade cross the tape. But that was a red herring, the first twist in a deal full of them.

O’Hoppe was a catching prospect of some note, a late-round Philadelphia draft pick in 2018 who ascended to Top 100 prospect status and then got swapped straight up for Brandon Marsh in 2022. He hit well enough to cover up some defensive shortcomings in his first few seasons of injury-interrupted work, but then he posted a 72 wRC+ in 2025, dragging his total contributions below replacement level. He’s hitting .209/.271/.295 this year, good for a 59 wRC+, and is below replacement level again. In fact, the Angels have accrued negative WAR at catcher, so they’re hardly where the Rangers should be looking for improvement. And indeed, as I tried to puzzle through how much of an upgrade O’Hoppe would even be, the Rangers rendered my thinking moot: They optioned O’Hoppe to Triple-A. Read the rest of this entry »

12:03

Dan Szymborski: And awaaaay we go

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Seems a little too niche to be worth such a major change?

12:04

Dan Szymborski: And in that, you also greatly incentivize a player to try and get hit very strongly

12:05

Dan Szymborski: No.

Read the rest of this entry »

Will Middlebrooks didn’t have an especially accomplished career. Hampered by injuries, the slugging third baseman saw action in just 347 big league games — the bulk of them with the Boston Red Sox — before hanging up his spikes shortly after his 29th birthday. But there were memorable moments along the way, and he has good stories to go with them. Now a broadcast analyst for the Red Sox, Middlebrooks shared several of them in the latest installment of our Challenging Career Quiz series.

I began by asking which pitcher he faced the most times.

“I had the most success against Mark Buehrle, and it could have been him,” replied Middlebrooks, who logged 262 hits, including 43 home runs, while playing from 2012-2017. “I know I faced him a lot. Was it Buerhle?”

Nope. Middlebrooks stood in the box against the longtime Chicago White Sox southpaw 19 times, going 8-for-18 with a pair of doubles and a hit-by-pitch, but it’s another hurler who has the honor. Asking Middlebrooks if he had any other guesses prompted a good exchange. Read the rest of this entry »

The Nationals have been one of my favorite teams to watch this season. Their offense has been spectacular, the best in the majors in multiple statistical categories. They’re scoring 5.48 runs per game, which easily paces the league. Even better for my viewing purposes, they rarely play a dull game. That’s because their pitching staff allows nearly as many runs as their offense scores. They’ve allowed the third-most runs in the majors this year, an ugly 5.21 per game.

This combination of amazing hitting and questionable pitching has given the Nationals their best shot at making the playoffs since they won the World Series in 2019. It also makes their goals at the trade deadline simple: Get more pitching. But before the Nats decide who to acquire, they need to figure out who to replace. That means the question I’ve been wondering in recent months is also surely of great interest to the DC decision-makers. That question: Is Cade Cavalli this good?

The majority of the Washington rotation is easy for me to evaluate. Foster Griffin? Pretty good! He came back from a three-year stint with the Yomiuri Giants this winter, and the six-pitch mix he developed there has served him well. Nothing he throws will wow you, but he has good command of it all and uses everything well. Sure, he’s not as good as his 2.76 ERA, but pretty much every other ERA estimator has him in the mid-to-high threes. The Nats, again, are allowing more than five runs a game. He’s an outlier relative to the rest of the pitching staff. Read the rest of this entry »