FanGraphs Baseball

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In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing meager production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement-level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is generally in the ballpark, though my final lists also incorporate our Depth Charts rest-of-season projections, which may nose them over the line. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it. Read the rest of this entry »

Break out your biggest, dumbest hats, friends. It’s time for the Derby. The 2026 Home Run Derby is at 8:00 PM Eastern tonight at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. It will be streaming on Netflix, which means that in just a few hours, my parents (and probably your parents too) will discover that they have no way of watching it. If the streaming service’s official trailer for the event is any indicator, the action will be pixelated electric. There’s no Statcast broadcast this year, but the Derby will apparently be a crossover event with Hot Ones, the show where celebrities answer questions while eating chicken wings. If you tune in too late for the dingers, you can console yourself by watching Will Ferrell get very sweaty.

Every year’s preview contains a section in which we bemoan the absence of some of the game’s biggest stars, and though it would be great to see Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, or Yordan Alvarez, we honestly can’t complain about this field at all. It’s fantastic. It’s got three of the top four home run hitters this season, and six of the top 20. It’s got hometown favorites. It’s got one surefire Hall of Famer. It’s got a mix of first-timers and previous winners and runners-up. It’s got a mix of young players and established stars. It’s got participants from four countries. Most of all, it’s filled from top to bottom with jaw-dropping, light-tower, into-the-next-county power.

Every single participant has plus bat speed and a huge hard-hit rate. We don’t have any filler. Nobody feels like a last-minute replacement, and nobody made it just because of a fluky first half or because they can combine average power with a high pulled-fly ball rate. Every single participant can mash, and none of them would be a surprise winner. Moreover, although practitioners of this brutalist version of baseball can sometimes struggle toward the end of the competition, when they’re tuckered out from all those daddy hacks, that may be less of an issue thanks to this year’s new format, which we’ll get to in a moment.

The ballpark should also help. Citizens Bank Park is a notoriously cozy venue that enables home run hitting. Statcast’s park factors rate it the fifth-friendliest home run park in baseball. However, that number isn’t exactly balanced. It plays roughly average for righties, while for lefties, it’s second only to Coors Field. The five lefties in the field should have the advantage.

The Rules

This year’s format change is drastic. After using a timer-based system since 2015, the league is going to a swing-based format. That’s actually different from the pre-timer format. In the past, players got a certain number of outs, which is to say non-homers, in each round. This year, it’s about swings. Each player gets 20 swings in the first round, and 15 in the second round and the final. However, the last swing of each round works like the old out system. You can’t end a round on a home run, so as long as you keep hitting homers, the round can go all night long.

This is a clever wrinkle, because it means that no matter how far behind he is, each player technically has a chance until he makes that final out. No longer will we watch players fall behind and know that, even with two minutes still on the clock, all their efforts will be futile. It’s also an annoying wrinkle, though, because that final ball has officially been branded the “T-Mobile Magenta Ball.” I’m not sure the enjoyment derived from giggling about the fact that this sounds like an embarrassing medical affliction will be worth the stultifying quantity of cellphone advertising that’s about to slam into our skulls.

As in the two previous Derbies, the first round will function as pool play. The four hitters with the most homers in the first round will enter a bracket, seeded by their first-round totals. Any ties in the first round will be decided by the length of each player’s longest home run. In the semifinals and final, the tiebreaker will be a three-swing swing-off.

The format contains one more odd wrinkle. In previous years, the order of the first-round pool play was determined by how many home runs each player hit in the first half. This year, the rules say the hitters “will hit in an order determined by the Commissioner’s Office.” I have no idea what would constitute an optimized order to the commissioner. However, I’m sure that somebody out there will disapprove of that order, so I hope they appreciate the gift of having a reason to complain about Rob Manfred before the Derby even starts.

The format change involves some tradeoffs. We lose the immediacy and adrenaline rush of a ticking clock. However, we gain the ability to enjoy each home run. No longer will we need a split screen or a camera that careens wildly from the infield to the outfield in order to see where the previous ball landed without missing the current swing. The big situations will get a moment to breathe, as will the big sluggers.

The new format is also a bit more fair. In previous Derbies, the pitcher wasn’t allowed throw the next ball until the previous one landed, but some teams – I’m looking at you, 2018 Bryce Harper and 2018 Bryce Harper’s dad – simply flouted that rule and gained a huge advantage. That will be off the table. We’ll also be free of gimmicky distance-based bonus rounds. Another effect of the new format is that a bad pitcher might be less of a handicap. Without a time limit, there’s no downside to taking a couple extra pitches and offering only at the tenderest of meatballs.

As for why the league changed the format again, why it’s constantly changing the format, I can’t really tell you. I’m excited about this new version. I think it’ll be more watchable than the timed version. But honestly, whatever problem the league has with the Home Run Derby, I think the format is rarely the culprit. The Derby always starts to drag halfway through because it runs for three hours, and that’s simply too long. Even the best, most exciting Derby is not a Christopher Nolan movie. It’s a one-note symphony, a fireworks display, and fireworks displays rarely last more than half an hour because eventually all those bangs and zooms start to blend together and get monotonous.

In order to stretch a Home Run Derby out for three hours, you need a bracket, multiple rounds, rest periods, convoluted bonus systems, indecipherable graphics, interviews with celebrities you wish you’d never heard of, and a full hour of commercials. You spend the whole time waiting for the good part, and because the contestants get physically tired, the good part can sometimes be a letdown. If the goal is to make the Home Run Derby as exciting as it can be, then the solution is to bring it down to a brisk 90 minutes. That probably won’t happen, because it means less advertising money, but changing the format is never going to solve that particular problem.

Alright, you’ve waited long enough. Let’s get to the large home-run-hitting men!

Kyle Schwarber

No matter what criteria you’re using to assess the Derby participants, Schwarber has to be a favorite. He’ll be in front of a raucous home crowd, and he has a history of showing up in big moments. At 33, he’s on the best two-year stretch of his entire career. He leads baseball with 32 home runs. As a matter of fact, since his debut in 2015, his 372 homers are second only to Aaron Judge’s 385 (and as Judge will be on the IL for at least another month, probably longer, Schwarber may just pass him). Schwarber has Derby experience, finishing second behind Harper in 2018 and going out in the first round in 2022. Maybe even more relevant considering this year’s format, he absolutely blew the roof off last year’s All-Star Game by laying waste to the swing-off.

Schwarber’s average launch angle of 21.8 degrees is the highest of the field by a mile and the sixth-highest among all qualified players. His 19.3% barrel rate ranks second in the field and fifth in baseball. Not only does it help that he is a lefty at Citizens Bank, but he is a pull machine. His average attack direction – the horizontal angle of his bat at the moment of impact – is 10 degrees toward the pull side, one of the most extreme marks in the game, and 16.9% of his batted balls are pulled fly balls, the highest mark in the group by a lot. At 25%, Schwarber also has the third-lowest chase rate in the field, and as players can take pitches to their hearts’ content waiting for the right one, that could end up being a difference-maker. But these are just numbers, and the argument for Schwarber is more visceral than that.

Ben Rice

Ben Rice debuted in 2024, and he’s done nothing but crush dingers ever since. He hit 26 last year, and he already has 29 this year. That’s the third most in baseball and the second most among Derby contestants. Still, if there is an underdog in this group, it’s probably Rice. The Big Grain (as everyone will soon by calling him) has the slowest bat speed of the field by quite a bit. He just doesn’t have the top-end power of the rest of the field. His average home run is the shortest of the bunch, and he’s benefited from Yankee Stadium’s shorter right-field dimensions. However, you know who had the shortest average homer in last year’s Derby? Winner Cal Raleigh. Additionally, as a lefty in Citizens Bank Park, Rice will have a similar advantage to the one he has at Yankee Stadium, and despite his relative shortcomings, he’s certainly not a weakling.

Rice ranks third among the group in barrel rate and home runs per fly ball. He leads all of baseball with a .320 isolated slugging percentage. He’s also coming into the Derby on a tear. Over his final 12 games of the first half, Rice batted .349 with a 259 wRC+ and seven home runs.

My biggest concern is that Rice is having his dad pitch to him. Now, Rice’s dad did pitch in college and has been throwing him BP for his entire life, and Rice also has the second-lowest chase rate of the field, but still, I think I’d rather have Dino Ebel.

Junior Caminero

If you’re simply looking for the most powerful player in the Derby, Caminero is your guy. His 28 home runs rank fourth in the majors. He has the fastest bat speed and the longest swing of any qualified player. He leads the Derby Field in 90th-percentile exit velocity, max exit velocity, fast-swing rate, and blast rate. The one thing he struggles at is getting the ball in the air. With a swing path tilt of just 24 degrees and an attack angle of just eight degrees, Caminero possesses one of the flattest swings in all of baseball. He’s got the second-lowest fly ball rate of the group, and his average fly ball travels the shortest. Hard-hit line drives are fantastic in baseball, but they can be killers in the Derby.

Still, Caminero has to be a favorite. He finished second in last year’s Derby, and the fact that he’s back certainly indicates that he’s in it to win it. He’s running it back with Rays major league field coordinator Tomas Francisco pitching to him again. Moreover, Caminero can hit absolutely anything out of the park. Here’s a side-by-side pitch chart of the home runs Caminero and Caglianone have hit. Caglianone has a sweet spot. He needs the ball middle up. But Caminero doesn’t care at all where you throw the ball.

Of course, this effect might matter just a little bit less in an untimed Derby, because batters can take as many pitches as they’d like, waiting for one that’s right in their sweet spot. But nobody’s perfect at this. Every pitch looks juicy in the Derby. And for Caminero, every pitch really will be.

Caminero is also coming into the Derby red-hot. Over his last 19 games, he’s batting .292 with a 227 wRC+, an .861 slugging percentage, and 13 home runs. Yeah, 13 homers in 19 games is pretty good.

Jordan Walker

The argument for Walker is the same as the argument for last year’s winner, Cal Raleigh: This is just his year. After big prospect hype and even bigger struggles in his first few seasons in the majors, Walker is finally putting it all together. He’s coming into the break with a 143 wRC+ and 22 home runs. He’s finally figured out how to lift the ball enough to take advantage all the power his 6-foot-6 frame can generate. Walker ranks second in the field in a bunch of big categories: bat speed, average exit velocity, 90th-percentile exit velocity, max exit velocity, and fast-swing rate. He’s also yet another participant coming into the Derby on a tear. Over his last 12 games, he’s running a 208 wRC+ with four homers and a .707 slugging percentage. He’s got his normal BP pitcher, St. Louis bullpen catcher Kleininger Teran, throwing to him. However, Walker’s launch angle is still the question.

Just 5% of Walker’s batted balls have been pulled fly balls, and even if you also add line drives in there to look for pulled-air percentage, he’s still at the bottom of the field at 15%. He just struggles to get the ball in the air, and it’s hard to win a Derby that way. But it’s not impossible. Just ask Juan Soto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. If Walker does win it all, it will be an unforgettable laser show. Also, he has been practicing:

Munetaka Murakami

The final addition to the field was an exciting one. Murakami hit at least 28 home runs in all six of his first full NPB seasons. Injuries shortened his 2025 campaign to just 56 games, but he managed to launch an astonishing 22 dingers during that stretch. Over a 162-game season, that would be a 63-homer pace. Even though injury has shortened his 2026 campaign too, he’s still on pace for 34.

Murakami is also jumping straight off the IL and into the Derby, so don’t let his relatively low total of 20 home runs fool you. He reached that figure despite missing 35 games with a hamstring strain, and only returned to the White Sox lineup on Friday. And don’t overlook him based on the fact that his top-end power is in the middle of this particular pack. He always hits the ball hard. He leads the field in hard-hit rate, average exit velocity, barrel rate, home runs per plate appearance, and home runs per fly ball. All he does is find a way to put the ball over the wall.

Here’s an example. Home run derbies are all about pulling the ball in the air, because the wall is shortest down the line. But Murakami doesn’t care about that. He’s great at hitting home runs even to the deepest part of the ballpark. Center field is where home runs go to die, but he’s tied with Nick Kurtz for the major league lead with nine home runs to straightaway center. That’s 41% of his homers going to the deepest part of the park, the highest mark in baseball (minimum 15 straightaway fly balls). Caminero is the only other member of the field above 30%.

The two concerns about Murakami before this season were that he might not be able to handle velocity, and that he definitely couldn’t hit breaking stuff. Neither of those will matter at all here. And the swing-based format might help him most of all. Murakami has the lowest chase rate in the field, and not by a small margin. He’s great at waiting for his pitch. He is made for home run derbies, and maybe for this format in particular.

Willson Contreras

I don’t really have a way to look this up, but I suspect Contreras is the first player ever to participate in the Derby in the middle of a suspension. He’s currently four games into a five-game suspension for his role in a June 30 benches-clearing brawl. For a few reasons – he was responding to racially inflammatory language, he was not in the best place emotionally due to the devastation in his home of Venezuela – Contreras came off as at least something of a sympathetic figure, even though he removed his helmet and threw it in the melee with the same motion as a Tim Tebow jump-pass. I’m about as pacifist as they come, but even I must admit there’s something poetic about watching a man use a piece of protective equipment as a weapon. Sure, you can beat your swords into plowshares, but that doesn’t have to stop you from launching those plowshares right at somebody’s noggin, now does it?

At 419 feet, Contreras has the longest average home run of anybody in the Derby. Wait, sorry, that’s his brother William Contreras. It’s a talented family is all I’m saying. In fact, Willson actually asked his brother to pitch to him in the Derby, which would have been so much fun. Unfortunately, William declined. Instead, Boston’s interim bench coach José David Flores will be stepping in. It won’t be as fun a story, but it’s definitely a wiser choice, as Flores throws BP to Contreras all the time.

Contreras possesses the game’s third-highest pull rate at 54.7%. The lack of red cells in the table above may make him look like something of an underdog, but I actually think he’s an interesting dark horse candidate. Being right-handed doesn’t help, and he’s definitely not the most powerful swinger of the bunch, but he doesn’t have any blue cells either. He’s toward the top in pull rate and pulled-fly ball rate. He also sounds genuinely excited to participate, and he has a sound strategy, telling reporters, “I think Philadelphia is a good stadium to hit. The ball carries a lot, and the key for me in the Home Run Derby is not trying to do too much or trying to hit it a long way. I already have a plan on what to do.”

Earlier, I mentioned that Caminero can hit any pitch out of the ballpark regardless of where it’s located. Contreras is similarly indiscriminate, but with regard to pitch type. Left-handed hitters Harper, Caglianone, Murakami, and Rice are fastball mashers. Each of them has hit at least 45% of his homers on four-seam fastballs. Fellow righties Caminero and Walker, along with the lefty Schwarber, are around 30%. Contreras is all the way down at 15%. This might not help him all that much when all he’s getting is batting-practice fastballs, but it does speak to an ability to send any pitch he sees over the fence.

Bryce Harper

Harper enters the fray coming off a very weird week. The announcement that he was entering the Derby came mere hours after the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that he had recorded a video message for FanDuel to a debt-ridden gambling addict who had lost $1.5 million to the company. However, the next day, Front Office Sports reported that the video had simply been ordered through Cameo, where anyone can buy a personalized video from Bryce Harper for $899. Harper definitely should have gotten suspicious when, according to FOS, the video was purchased by a FanDuel employee who also provided Harper with the script, but the story is not nearly as unsavory as it originally seemed. Why is Bryce Harper, who will make roughly $900 dollars for each 1.5 pitches thrown in a Phillies game this year, on Cameo at all? That’s a good question, but one for another day. The question for today is whether this bizarre situation will give Harper extra motivation to win back some love by mashing baseballs. God knows high-level athletes have used lesser slights to fuel themselves.

Harper is a hometown favorite and the only previous winner in the field. He also has perhaps the best pitcher in the field. Although he won the 2018 event with his father pitching to him, this time he selected Dodgers third base coach Dino Ebel. Ebel is as renowned as a BP pitcher can be, which is why he’s pitched in the Derby four times, including 2024, when he and Teoscar Hernández won the whole thing. Ebel also pitched to Schwarber during last year’s All-Star Game swing-off.

The 33 year-old Harper is running his lowest exit velocity and hard-hit rate of the decade, and at this point, his ferocious uppercut is far from the most powerful in the field. He’s got the lowest hard-hit rate, average exit velocity, barrel rate, home run per fly ball rate, and he’s second worst in bat speed, home run distance, and pulled-air rate. I don’t think anyone would be shocked to see Harper rise to the occasion and channel his precocious past, but at this point, the numbers say he probably shouldn’t be the favorite.

Jac Caglianone

At first blush, Caglianone might look like the odd man out here. He’s the low man by quite a bit in terms of home runs. His 15 homers put him a 12-way tie for 49th in baseball. His 4.3% home run rate per plate appearance is the lowest of the field. His dad is pitching to him. But Caglianone is a gargantuan slugger who was built for the Derby. He has the third-highest hard-hit rate among qualified players and the second highest in the field. He’s just one year removed from a rookie campaign in which he bashed 19 home runs over just 62 games, a 47-homer pace. And luckily, he doesn’t have to do any throwing. Perhaps you’ll recall that Statcast created a metric called blasts when they introduced bat-tracking data. The loose definition is a ball that is squared up with a bat speed above 82 mph. This season, 23.5% of his batted balls have been blasts, third highest in the field and ninth highest in baseball.

I showed you the pitch chart of Caglianone’s home runs earlier, with all of them coming belt high and up. It’s the opposite of what you’d expect from lefty sluggers, who typically drop their bat head on the ball and finish with their hands high. There’s nothing wrong with tomahawking high pitches like Caglianone does, but it tends to lead to a lot more line drives and topspin. Just 5.6% of Caglianone’s batted balls have been pulled fly balls, the second-lowest mark in the field. It also means that Caglianone needs to pick his pitches carefully, and that might be tough, as he has the highest chase rate among the eight contestants. He also has the fewest home runs per plate appearance in the group. However, on the flip side, he has the longest average homer at 414 feet. Now, some of this may come from playing at Kauffman Stadium, but it also speaks to the fact that when Caglianone gets ahold of the ball, it can go an awfully long way.

Who’s going to win?

Look, we never really know who’s going to win. We do the best we can with the information we have, but there’s so much randomness involved. That said, it’s Kyle Schwarber. After last year, I just can’t pick against Schwarber.

I had the pleasure of attending the 2026 Futures Game yesterday in Philadelphia. Good weather, a big crowd, and great rosters — this game was especially loaded with pitching, which isn’t always the case — made for a fun event.

The nature of the game makes it an imperfect place to evaluate talent. It’s a showcase environment where big tools stand out more than refined skills, and, particularly in a seven-inning game, there’s precious little time for players to show off their range of abilities. Below you’ll find thoughts and reflections on the day, which also included batting practice and pregame defensive work. Inevitably, given the volume of players, some of these write-ups are fairly short, more of a weather report than anything else. In other cases, players moved the needle for me, or at least inspired things for us to monitor over the rest of the season. If you want the full monty on these guys, all of them have full scouting reports on our team-specific lists. We’ve also opted to tuck this recap into our draft coverage navigation widget. If you missed our recap of Day 1, or any of our other coverage, be sure to check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is a team-by-team analysis of last night’s draft activity. Remember that you can find more detailed scouting reports and tool grades for the players drafted yesterday over on The Board. The positions below are what we have them projected as on The Board, not necessarily what the player was announced as. For pitchers, we have a role designated below: starter (SP), or single-inning or multi-inning reliever (SIRP and MIRP).

Arizona was in a tough spot, caught in the middle of the round just after the more skillful hitters (who are usually their type) were picked. They were left with a choice between a few hitters with balanced skill sets but bottom-dwelling defensive fits (like Logan Hughes) or good up-the-middle defenders with hit tool risk. They ended up taking a player from the latter category in Helfrick, who can frame, throw, and has power that he might not tap into consistently due to strikeouts. He could be a Mike Zunino reboot of sorts, which would be a good outcome at the 15th pick. Bryant has a nasty fastball/curveball combo and a projectable frame. We had him ranked 20 spots lower than he was picked, but we don’t really consider him to be a reach; the players in that range are comparable. Kerce has a good shot to be a speedy utility guy, Dowd needs to get stronger, and McDevitt is a test for a player dev group that hasn’t done well with pitchers. His fastball plays, but can they find a secondary pitch? — EL Read the rest of this entry »

Tarik Skubal started a spring training game I attended back in March — I believe it was in Dunedin — and something he said following the outing caught my attention. Speaking to a small group of reporters, the Detroit Tigers southpaw said “Ding was really creative back there today. I loved the pitch mix. I felt like he was using every weapon we needed.”

I asked Skubal if he could elaborate.

“I don’t know to explain it other than the flow was great,” he replied. “Mixing spin in counts where we typically don’t throw spin, then going to back to spin to get to the changeup. I felt like he was in control today. He was pressing the right buttons and I was synced up. It’s part of the sport where things happen subconsciously.”

Ding is, of course, All-Star catcher Dillon Dingler. Four months after Skubal spoke those words, I had an opportunity to ask the backstop how he would describe creativity within the framework of game-calling — not just when the Tigers ace is on the mound, but for the staff as a whole.

“You’re not going to try to recreate the wheel,” replied Dingler, whose diligent game prep is well-chronicled. “You’re going to stick with strengths, so it’s about finding different avenues to get to those strengths. That could be spinning in certain counts, spinning early, not showing the fastball until later. Then, once they’re on the fastball you can go changeup or to something else. There are a bunch of different avenues to get to the final result. Read the rest of this entry »

I love the draft. Well, from a broader standpoint I find it morally abominable that workers entering an industry have no say in which company they work for or where they’ll be posted. But since we have a draft, and it seems highly unlikely that that’s going to change in the near future, I love covering it.

This is the confluence of amateur baseball (especially college ball, my great love) and the professional game. It’s the dawn of a new age of possibility; for months, we don’t know for sure where Roch Cholowsky or Jackson Flora are going to be playing in the pros. The moment in which we find out is an exciting one. I love seeing the stars of tomorrow before they’ve had their quirks sanded off by the great finishing school that is minor league baseball.

This is a minority position among baseball fans — even diehard fans — and media. In American professional sports, public interest in the draft is proportional to the proximity of draftees to the major leagues. This is as close to a law of natural science as you’ll find in sports, but since the pandemic, Major League Baseball has toyed with finding the limits of that law. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley share listener solutions to the mystery of why the 12-straight-hits club is such an undistinguished group, the Home Run Derby field, Bryce Harper’s video message (13:28) to a sports-betting addict and sportsbooks’ practice of preying on whales, the disparity (35:54) in the recent treatment of two pitchers who had no-hitters in progress, and Zack Wheeler’s gripe against All-Star selecting, then (1:02:42) answer a listener email about how much a game one has to have seen to claim to have “watched” it, and Stat Blast (1:23:20) about partial home run robberies, games with matching starter pitch and strike counts, historical team no-hitter conversion rates, and prolific “first” strikeout and home-run recorders.

Audio intro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Justin Peters, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Tolbert record post 1
Link to Tolbert record post 2
Link to Williams 11th hit
Link to Pedroia 11th hit
Link to HRD field
Link to Norway rowing pedant
Link to Inquirer article on Harper
Link to Post article on Harper
Link to lawsuit article
Link to Giannis/Kalshi article
Link to gambling damage research 1
Link to gambling damage research 2
Link to addiction story 1
Link to addiction story 2
Link to addiction story 3
Link to addiction story 4
Link to addiction story 5
Link to story on Jones 1
Link to story on Jones 2
Link to Jones game log
Link to questions about Jones
Link to Jones Q&A
Link to Cease story
Link to BP on Cease
Link to top 2026 pitch counts
Link to Blum on pulling pitchers
Link to Scott/PCA clip
Link to Ben on no-hitter strike zones
Link to Wheeler quote clip
Link to Wheeler’s agent article
Link to latest Luzardo start
Link to 2025 Phillies ASG complaints
Link to “May I meet you?” meme
Link to Pascal’s wager wiki
Link to “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
Link to Simpson/Adell robbery
Link to Glavine game 1
Link to Glavine game 2
Link to Nola question
Link to Bois on Stieb
Link to Stat Blast data
Link to listener emails database
Link to Cubs fact 1
Link to Cubs fact 2
Link to MLBTR on Ohtani
Link to MLBTR on Wetherholt

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Here is my final mock draft, which is based on information I’ve continued to gather over the last couple of days. I’ve offered analysis in places where I believed new dope merited it; otherwise, it’s just names. There’s more background for many of these picks in the first mock from a few days ago.

1. Chicago White Sox
Pick: Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA
Yesterday, teams picking behind Chicago began to believe the White Sox had narrowed their options down to only Cholowsky and Grady Emerson. If the White Sox view Cholowsky and Emerson as equals and the “tie breaker” becomes about bonus money, such that the player being willing to take the lower bonus will help facilitate a bigger, more robust overall draft class for the White Sox, then the pick should be Cholowsky.

If Emerson doesn’t go here, my information indicates he’s going second to Tampa. If Cholowsky doesn’t go here, it’s believed that the Rays prefer Lackey to Roch, with Roch going third to Minnesota. Multiple people have insinuated to me that the Cholowsky camp would rather that not happen. I don’t think the Twins are going to blink, no matter how much money the Giants are willing to offer Cholowsky. They’ll just take him and dare him to go back to UCLA if he truly doesn’t want to sign with them, which is how I would approach the pick. And so maybe there is some symbiosis here, where Roch can land in a spot he prefers and take more than he’d get at pick three (slot there is $9.74 million), but at enough of a discount below the slot at no. 1 ($11.3 million) that it’s worth it to the White Sox. Chicago acquiring an extra pick from the Pirates last night (34th overall) suddenly makes that kind of savings more relevant to the rest of the White Sox draft class than it was 24 hours ago.

Then again, I’m sitting here thinking about Billy Carlson. The idiosyncrasies and vulnerability of Cholowsky’s swing are similar to Carlson’s. How are the White Sox feeling about Carlson so far? Are they emboldened by the changes they made to Jacob Gonzalez’s swing, and confident they can do something similar with Roch if they need to? They just traded Gonzalez. This is conjecture and speculation, whereas the incentives I outlined in the paragraph above are more concrete. Also worth noting here: Emerson and Cholowsky are both represented by Wasserman. That end of the phone line is operating with perfect information; the two players can’t really be played against one another. This scenario where Roch goes first (for $9.74 to $10 million) and Emerson second is the best Wasserman can do for their both clients.

2. Tampa Bay Rays
Pick: Grady Emerson, SS, Fort Worth Christian (TX)
If Emerson goes first, I’d expect Lackey to go here.

3. Minnesota Twins
Pick: Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech
It sounds like the Twins will take whichever of the three top players remains. Lackey is the top player on my board, but with the same 55 FV grade as Emerson (no. 2) and Cholowsky (no. 3). I did have Drew Burress‘ name mentioned here late last night, at a discount (obviously). Burress’ next realistic homes are rumored to be toward the back of the top 10, so if this is true, Minnesota is looking at a cut of about $2 million and then can flex with their picks in the 70s.

4. San Francisco Giants
Pick: Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara
No change from my first mock, where you can read my reasoning. I think pick nos. 4 and 5 will be Flora and Eric Booth in some order. Jacob Lombard is falling.

5. Pittsburgh Pirates
Pick: Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove HS (MS)
I think Pittsburgh dealing the 34th pick last night had a little bit to do with them wanting to improve the big league team and a little bit to do with them waving the white flag at the notion that they were going to be able to leverage their bonus pool into a top-tier player. If Booth goes ahead of them, there’s some late buzz about them possibly diverting away from Flora because the Buccos have “too much pitching,” something that you famously can’t have enough of, and that the Pirates know firsthand to be fragile and volatile. I’d be incredulous if they passed on a guy who I consider to be clearly better than the other options, but the rumored names if they go that route are college outfielders Drew Burress or Derek Curiel.

6. Kansas City Royals
Pick: Jared Grindlinger, TWP, Huntington Beach HS (CA)
Kansas City might happily take Booth or Flora here if either of them falls, but I think part of why the Royals have seemingly been kicking the tires on a creative line of play here is because they don’t think that’s likely to happen. Grindlinger’s other homes seem to be in the pick 10-13 range, where the bonus slots are around $6 million. If the Royals can get a deal done with Grindlinger for about that much, their second pick (30th overall) could theoretically be for a nearly $5 million player, though the Giants pick right in front of them and could be a landmine if they try to do that. Grindlinger might be the second- or third-best high school hitter in this class, and to take a player with that kind of upside while simultaneously tee’ing up the rest of your class is a move that takes real moxie given how difficult it is to gauge Grindlinger’s ability compared to the others.

7. Baltimore Orioles
Pick: Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech
This might be Eric Booth Jr.’s floor if he’s somehow still here. Burress fits with Baltimore’s style of taking high-performing college hitters with their earliest picks and is also a rumored target of their’s.

8. Athletics
Pick: Ryder Helfrick, C, Arkansas
The loudest feedback following my first mock was that I had Arkansas catcher Ryder Helfrick entirely too low, with the A’s mentioned as the earliest and likeliest landing spot.

9. Atlanta Braves
Pick: Chris Hacopian, 2B, Texas A&M
This is a linchpin pick in this draft that will likely set off a chain reaction for the half dozen or so teams picking immediately behind Atlanta. There’s a scenario where the Braves’ pockets are picked and there’s no one guy left who they love, so they cut an under-slot deal (to buff their options at pick 26) from a short list of players based on which of them would otherwise go latest, as that player has the most incentive to cut. This sequence, where Burress is off the board, spawns that scenario. There’s going to be a run on college hitters immediately following this, and it’s possible Atlanta can get a sense of which of them is falling the deepest throughout the day and make him their target. Hacopian’s injury stuff might be a thing that forces him to the rear of this cluster of college hitters, so I have him speculatively put here. It feels more solid to say that high school lefty Gio Rojas and Virginia outfielder AJ Gracia would otherwise go in the late teens at the earliest, but I think it’d buck Atlanta’s historical trends of caring a lot about pretty deliveries and defensive ability for them to do that. By it’s very nature, the strategy of cutting here to do more at 26 is one of risk mitigation, so taking a guy whose only issue is injury risk feels less scary.

10. Colorado Rockies
Pick: Derek Curiel, CF, LSU
I had Curiel off the board ahead of Colorado in my first mock, with Zion Rose here.

11. Washington Nationals
Pick: Tyler Bell, SS, Kentucky
I have Washington with college bats, with one source indicating to me they aren’t as strong on Hacopian. Bell would be great value here.

12. Los Angeles Angels
Pick: Ace Reese, 3B, Mississippi State
I’m not sure how the late changes atop Los Angeles’ power structure are going to impact this pick, but it feels silly to put the Angels with anything other than college players in the first round until they prove they’re willing to take a high schooler.

13. St. Louis Cardinals
Pick: Zion Rose, OF, Louisville
I think this could be a college pitcher if the contact-oriented college hitters are gone at this point, like if Zion goes the pick before this rather than Reese.

14. Miami Marlins
Pick: Jacob Lombard, SS, Gulliver Prep (FL)
I think enough teams are scared of Lombard’s contact performance for him to slide. Whether this is actually his backstop I don’t know, but the Marlins have taken high schoolers with hit tool risk pretty consistently, and the optics of this pick would be favorable because they’d get a Floridian who some consider to be a top five pick. Lombard terrifies me, but I still have him ranked ninth because of how big the tools are.

15. Arizona Diamondbacks
Pick: Trevor Condon, CF, Etowah HS (GA)
No change.

16. Texas Rangers
Pick: A.J. Gracia, OF, Virginia
17. Houston Astros
Pick: Justin Lebron, SS, Alabama
I think Lebron is gone by one of these two picks. I have very little dope on Texas this year and just consider Gracia as the most stable college hitter left at this point.

18. Cincinnati Reds
Pick: Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida
No change, though Trevor Condon’s name has been mentioned here too. With Gio Rojas is still sitting here in this scenario, I wonder if he’d be in the mix for the same reasons (he’s from Florida, and the Reds have been fine using premium resources on high school arms).

19. Cleveland Guardians
Pick: Cameron Flukey, RHP, Coastal Carolina
Cleveland takes a Bayesian approach, and Flukey was thought of as a top-10 pick entering the year, then dealt with injury. This is a Gavin Williams sequel if it works out for them.

20. Boston Red Sox
Pick: Bo Lowrance, 3B, Christ Church Episcopal (SC)
There have been whispers about Boston cutting here with a contact-oriented college guy, and I wonder if that could be NC State center fielder Ty Head based on their tendencies targeting contact-driven players. This is the middle of where Lowrance’s range is assumed to be.

21. San Diego Padres
Pick: Gio Rojas, LHP, Stoneman Dougles HS (FL)
The Padres have been very open to the high school pitching demo and get even better value than they normally would here with Rojas, who becomes the Mick Abel/Andrew Painter of this draft, where it feels silly that arguably the best high school pitcher falls this far.

22. Detroit Tigers
Pick: Connor Comeau, 3B, Anderson HS (TX)
Detroit likes projectable, left-handed high school hitters. Bo Lowrance is also a fit, but is off the board in this scenario.

23. Chicago Cubs
Pick: Logan Hughes, OF, Texas Tech

24. Seattle Mariners
Pick: Tegan Kuhns, RHP, Tennessee
Seattle seems to be on pitching here, of any demo. Liberty’s Ben Blair might be an interesting option with whom to cut a deal. He’s athletic and throws strikes, which is the Mariners’ type. They can do prep pitching later if they cut, maybe Kaiden McCarthy. Here I have them with a player whose fastball is really going to play, and whose secondary stuff they’ll need to develop.

25. Milwaukee Brewers
Pick: Cade Townsend, RHP, Ole Miss
The Brewers like guys with great breaking balls or hitters with huge power. Either Townsend or Cole Carlon.

26. Atlanta Braves
Pick: Carson Bolemon, LHP, Southside Christian (SC)
No change.

27. New York Mets
Pick: Cole Carlon, LHP, Arizona State
The Mets value breaking ball quality and velocity despite relief risk, and Carlon is like a turbo-charged version.

28. Houston Astros
Pick: Daniel Jackson, C, Georgia
No change

29. San Francisco Giants
Pick: Sawyer Strosnider, OF, TCU

30. Kansas City Royals
Pick: Ethan Wachsmann, RHP, Grandview HS (CO)

31. Arizona Diamondbacks
Pick: Mason Edwards, LHP, USC

32. St. Louis Cardinals
Pick: Ben Blair, RHP, Liberty

33. Tampa Bay Rays
Pick: Jarren Advincula, 2B, Georgia Tech

34. Chicago White Sox
Pick: Landon Thome, INF, Nazareth Academy (IL)

35. New York Yankees
Pick: Jack Natili, C, Cincinnati

36. Philadelphia Phillies
Pick: Tyler Spangler, SS, De La Salle HS (CA)

37. Colorado Rockies
Pick: Aiden Ruiz, SS, Stony Brook HS (NY)

38. Colorado Rockies
Pick: Dee Kennedy, SS, Kansas State

39. Toronto Blue Jays
Pick: Will Brick, C, Christian Brothers HS (TN)

40. Los Angeles Dodgers
Pick: Taylor Rabe, RHP, Ole Miss

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