Thanks to the nor’easter dumping rain up and down the Eastern Seaboard, the Cubs have traveled from Chicago to Boston to St. Petersburg and finally all the way across the country to San Diego in the past five days, but they don’t sound daunted by the challenge. “Just tell us where to play,” manager Craig Counsell told reporters on Friday. “We’ll show up and play.” Well, on Tuesday, the Padres and Cubs face off in the Wild Card Series between the National League’s top two non-division winners. Both teams have plenty of offense, a great defense, and some question marks on the mound. You’re playing in San Diego, Craig. Get yourself one of those burritos with French fries in it and get to the ballpark.

The other Craig – that would be Padres manager Craig Stammen – is in his first season skippering a major league club. Or any club, for that matter. You could view his inexperience as a liability, or you could view his long, recent playing career as a reliever as a tactical advantage for pulling the right bullpen strings in a short series. Either way, you should also probably get yourself a California-style burrito before the game, Other Craig. They’re so good.

The Padres look to be peaking at the right time. They went out and grabbed the first Wild Card spot, ending the season on a 17-3 run, with just enough of a cushion to line up their three best starters for the Wild Card series. But they’re a lot more than a team on a hot streak. At 41-18, they’ve had the best record in baseball since July 24. How long do you need to be playing like the best team in baseball before you simply are the best team in baseball? The Padres have some major concerns when it comes to pitching, but they’ve also got a couple of the little things that can make an outsized difference in a short series. Their rotation is front-loaded. They’ve got an all-world closer. They’re one of the better baserunning and base stealing teams in the game.

Because the Brewers have been so dominant all season long, precluding any shot at a division title, the Cubs have maybe flown under the radar a bit. It doesn’t help that they’ve only won three games in a row once over the past month and a half. When we’ve talked about them this season, the conversation has tended to start and end with Pete Crow-Armstrong. That’s certainly understandable given his accomplishments, but make no mistake: This team is a genuine World Series contender. The Cubs may be a five seed, and, like many of this year’s Wild Card teams, they may have backed into that position with an uninspiring finish to the season, but they rank third by BaseRuns and fourth Pythagorean record. They’ve got the best offense in baseball, and they don’t just lead baseball in position player WAR, they’re in their own galaxy:

The pitching has been the issue for the Cubs all season, but they added at the deadline, and they’ve had time to rest their bullpen and set up their three best starters for the Wild Card Series. Let’s get to the breakdown.

Pitching (Depressing Preamble)

How many innings can Mason Miller throw over a three-day period? The Padres somehow ran the sixth-best record in baseball although their starters’ 4.42 ERA ranked just 21st in baseball. Oh, and that number makes them look a lot better than they really were. If you rate the rotations by xERA, FIP, or xFIP, they’re firmly in the bottom five. But they were dealing with injuries all year, and they’re healthier now. In the month of September, their performance has been middling, and middling may be enough to get it done, because let me introduce you to the Cubs.

“Pitching-wise, we struggled with injuries and performance the whole year,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told our David Laurila. “We improved that throughout the year, but that’s probably the biggest difference [from last season]. So, the defense performed better [and] the offense performed better, but on the pitching side, we’ve been bringing guys in and out all year, making trades. The best attribute of this team has been the resiliency to deal with that.” Chicago’s full-team ERA was 4.12, which ranked 13th in baseball, but both FIP and xERA ranked it 24th or worse. The Cubs’ 6.0 pitching WAR surpassed only the Royals and the Nationals. Yuck.

All the same, as I mentioned in the opening, both teams had the chance to get their pitching in order as best they could over the last couple days. Let’s get more specific.

Rotation

Other Craig lined up Michael King to pitch the last game of the regular season if needed, but Saturday’s victory over the Diamondbacks took the pressure off, allowing King to take the mound for Game 1. King finished the season with a 3.21 ERA and a 4.13 FIP. His velocity has been trending up all year, and although he ended his season with a clunker against the Dodgers on September 22, he has a 2.53 ERA and 3.64 FIP over his last seven starts. That stretch also included a four-start winning streak.

Nick Pivetta seems all but certain to start Game 2. A flexor strain sidelined him for 147 days, but he returned in September and he’s seen excellent results. Over four starts, he’s run a 1.45 ERA and 3.04 ERA. That’s the great news. The bad news is that his expected numbers aren’t quite as pretty, he faced tomato cans in three of those starts, and he didn’t go more than five innings in any of them. Still, his strikeout numbers ticked up in each successive start, and you have to feel pretty good about a guy who held the Dodgers scoreless in his last regular season appearance.

That leaves Game 3 as a tossup between Walker Buehler and deadline addition Robbie Ray. Ray (along with as fellow deadline addition Casey Mize) put up a great ERA before getting traded to the Padres and more or less exploding. Buehler looked great for most of August, but he hasn’t made it out of the fourth inning in two of his last four starts. Mize is on the IL with an ankle injury, so in all likelihood, the Padres will hope to cobble together whatever they can from Buehler, Ray, and the bullpen in Game 3 (or, even better, to avoid a Game 3 altogether).

For Chicago’s part, Craig Prime was upset that MLB sprang a short notice doubleheader on the Cubs and Red Sox on Friday in order to get ahead of the weather, protesting that the Cubs didn’t have enough pitching to make it through the day. You can understand his concern, and the Cubs supported his contention by dropping both games. That’s one way to back up your skipper! However, getting Saturday off while the Wild Card picture sorted itself out essentially gave him three full days to rest his bullpen and align his pitching. On Sunday, he got most of his innings from Braxton Garrett, who is unlikely to see the mound in San Diego. And Chicago’s starters have actually pitched much better more recently. Since September 10, their 3.08 ERA and 3.18 FIP rank third and fifth in baseball, respectively. Still, their strength is more about possessing a number of solid starters than any one great one.

Craig Prime has been careful to avoid dropping any hints about who will be starting which game for the Cubs. Matthew Boyd is lined up to start Game 1 on normal rest. He has a 3.91 ERA and 4.22 FIP this season, but he pitched well down the stretch, lowering those numbers to 3.28 and 2.99 over his past six starts. He’s also faced the Padres twice this season, allowing three earned runs over five innings en route to a win on June 30, while getting rocked for five earned over four innings in a no-decision on April 27. Clay Holmes and David Peterson both pitched on Friday, which would leave them both available to pitch on regular rest for Game 2 on Wednesday.

The big question is whether deadline acquisition Kevin Gausman will be ready. If he is, he may well be the choice to start Game 1. At 4.51, Gausman is running his worst ERA since 2017, but his peripherals are better. Aside from a blowup against the Braves earlier in the month, he’s been pitching much better lately, and just last year, he was instrumental to Toronto’s World Series run. Gausman’s right arm would be rested enough to pitch in any game of the series, but he injured his left shoulder making a diving play last Wednesday. Counsell told reporters that Gausman threw on Friday, but was still sore and the team would be monitoring the situation. Gausman then threw a bullpen on Sunday, telling reporters afterward, “Things are trending in the right direction, so that’s definitely a positive.” Asked whether he’d be ready to pitch on Tuesday, he said, “Yeah, I don’t know. That’s tough. The biggest question mark is how I feel tomorrow.”

Counsell started Shota Imanaga on Sunday, but only had him pitch one inning. Presumably, that would leave the lefty available to pitch either Game 2 or 3. At 3.74, he actually has the best ERA of any Cubs starter. Although he gave up a homer on Sunday, he was lights-out in his previous four starts, running a 1.96 ERA with a 2.06 FIP and making it through six innings three times.

I suppose you could call this one a wash. On paper, the Padres have the edge in Game 1. The Cubs have a lot more decent starting options, but none of them is so good as to be an obvious choice. They could piggyback, or they could come out of the bullpen, or they could all take the mound together in one really large trench coat.

Bullpen

Have you heard about Mason Miller? Tall gentleman? Throws 150 mph or so? Running a 1.67 ERA that FIP thinks should be even lower, 38 saves, averaging a preposterous 0.055 WAR per inning pitched? Miller has allowed runs in three of his last five starts, the first time all season he’s done so, but if the Padres are going to succeed in October, he’ll be doing a lot of the heavy lifting. San Diego’s whole game plan will center around finding a way to get the ball to Miller with a lead. Miller has secured more than three outs nine times this season, and we definitely shouldn’t be surprised to see him in the eighth inning, but he won’t be alone. Adrian Morejon and Bradgley Rodriguez have both had fantastic seasons. Randy Vásquez and Jeremiah Estrada have been very good. Ideally, Other Craig would rely on these five guys, but Yuki Matsui and newcomer David Morgan have both pitched well in the past month.

Daniel Palencia has not allowed an earned run since September 2, which is something of a consolation prize. Deadline addition Ryan Zeferjahn has taken over the closer role, and he hasn’t pitched quite as well since he left Anaheim for Chicago by way of the links at Trout National. However, Zeferjahn is on his own streak. He hasn’t allowed a run since September 7. The Cubs may also have the services of erstwhile ace Justin Steele, who struck out five of the seven batters in his most recent rehab stint. Ryan Rolison and Aaron Civale, and Colin Rea have all pitched well lately, and though Javier Assad has struggled of late, he’s sure to make an appearance. This paragraph may have a lot of names, but none of them is Mason Miller, and you could argue that the Cubs don’t even have a name to match Morejon or Rodriguez. The bullpen advantage has to go to San Diego.

Hitting

As Dan Szymborski is forced to remind us every October, teams that are more reliant on home runs tend to do slightly better in the playoffs. That might sound like an advantage for the Cubs, whose 220 home runs rank third in the baseball, but if you just look at September, the Padres’ 33 homers rank seventh, while the Cubs’ 24 put them all the way down at 21st.

The Chicago lineup is about a lot more than PCA. Alex Bregman and Seiya Suzuki make the Cubs the only team in baseball with three top-20 position players by WAR. Bregman has a 176 wRC+ in the second half, the best mark among all qualified players, and somehow, even breaking half his face can’t stop him from launching dingers.

I haven’t even gotten into Michael Busch, or the surprising Michael Conforto. You don’t build the best lineup in baseball without some depth. By wRC+, the Cubs are the second-best team in baseball from the eighth spot in the lineup and the best from the ninth spot. (In fact, their 108 wRC+ from the nine hole isn’t just better than the Padres’ bottom of the lineup production; it’s also better than their production from the second, third, and sixth spots.) The point is that the Cubs give opposing pitchers very few at-bats off, and if they can stretch San Diego past its top tier of relievers, they’ll have the chance to do real damage.

San Diego’s offense closed even stronger than Chicago’s. The Padres ran a 127 wRC+ in September, the best mark in baseball by six points. They’ve got five everyday players with a wRC+ over 130 in the past month. After the bizarre, homerless start to his season, Fernando Tatis Jr. has been (very arguably) the best player in baseball. His 172 second-half wRC+ trails only Bregman and Pete Alonso among qualifiers, and both Ty France (154) and Jackson Merrill (148) are close by. Even Xander Bogaerts has bounced back from an ugly season and is running a 156 wRC+ in September. Samad Taylor has come out of nowhere to run a (very BABIP-aided) 129 wRC+ on the seasons. The Padres may not have Chicago’s depth, but that’s a lot of players who can beat you.

Both teams can really hit.

Defense

This is a three game series. It’s not particularly likely that the defense is going to decide this thing on its own one way or another. However, it certainly merits its own heading, because Statcast believes these are two of the best defenses in baseball. The Padres rank fifth with 36 FRV. Defensive Runs Saved doesn’t like them quite as much, ranking them 10th with 31 DRS. The Cubs have another gear. Led by Crow-Armstrong, who put up one of the great defensive seasons in baseball history, the Cubs ran away with the league lead in the advanced defensive metrics. Their 70 FRV gave them a 23-run lead over the second-place Cardinals, while their 116 DRS gave them a 30-run cushion over the second-place Rays. If any team could have a defense deadly enough to steal a series, it’s these Cubs.

Craigs

This one’s a dead heat.

Source

For the second season in a row, the American League East’s top rivals will square off in a best-of-three Wild Card Series in the Bronx. This matchup, though, is hardly a carbon copy of the last one, when the Yankees advanced thanks to rookie Cam Schlittler’s dominant Game 3 performance. For one thing, both the Yankees (93-68) and Red Sox (87-75) have experienced some turnover, and each may be without one of their biggest superstars. At this writing, the Yankees are expected to go without Aaron Judge, who played in just seven games between returning from a stress fracture in his right first rib that cost him all of June, July, and August, and a right calf strain that sent him back to the injured list retroactive to September 17. The Red Sox are still evaluating whether 2025 AL Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet will be part of their bullpen; he hasn’t pitched in a competitive game since April 25 due to shoulder capsule inflammation and a subsequent lat strain, and did not have time to rebuild to a starter’s pitch count.

Beyond that intrigue, these are hardly the offensive juggernauts of yesteryear. Last October’s matchup pitted the AL’s highest-scoring team (the Yankees, 5.24 runs per game) against the third-highest scoring (the Red Sox, 4.85 runs per games), but this year’s pair respectively ranks second (4.59 runs per game, 101 wRC+) and 10th (4.25 runs per game, 99 wRC+). Instead, these are the league’s top two teams in terms of run prevention, with the Yankees allowing 3.73 runs per game and the Red Sox 3.77.

For both teams, this was a tale of two seasons. After the Red Sox skidded to a 10-17 start, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow fired manager Alex Cora — who guided the Red Sox past the Yankees during the 2018 and ’21 postseasons, with a championship in the first of those years — and shook up the coaching staff. Under interim manager Chad Tracy, the Red Sox reached the season’s halfway point with a 35-46 record before climbing above .500 during a franchise record-tying 15-game winning streak from July 3–22. Though they went just 12-12 in September amid injuries, Tracy was rewarded last week with a three-year contract and the removal of the interim tag from his title. The team has gone 77-58 on his watch.

The Yankees were 36-23 and just 1.5 games behind the Rays in the AL East when Judge went down; at that point, both their 5.17 runs per game and 116 wRC+ led the AL. Since then, even including Judge’s abbreviated return, they’ve gone 57-45, scoring just 4.25 runs per game (11th in the AL) with just a 93 wRC+ (14th). Judge went just 4-for-23 with one walk and 13 strikeouts during that seven-game stretch. Both he and manager Aaron Boone initially skirted any description of the injury’s specificity or severity before the Yankees revealed the slugger had suffered a “moderate” calf strain. Last Tuesday, a day after Judge received a platelet-poor-plasma injection, Boone said he didn’t expect Judge to be part of the Wild Card Series roster. The slugger has maintained his intention to be ready, but as of Sunday morning, Boone said that Judge had only done “rehab stuff” this weekend: “He started to do some plyos… I know he was on the treadmill a little bit yesterday, so not a whole lot yet.” Given how bad Judge looked earlier this month, and the likelihood he would be confined to DH duty, which would have a ripple effect on the lineup, I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Willis Reed moment.

Rotations

Run prevention is the reason the Yankees were able to win 93 games despite Judge’s prolonged absence and the offense’s drought. Yankees starters posted the majors’ lowest ERA (3.30) despite Cole and Carlos Rodón starting the season on the injured list as they recovered from elbow surgeries (Tommy John for the former, bone spur and loose bodies removal for the latter). Schlittler and Will Warren were New York’s only starters to take more than 25 turns.

After giving consideration to starting Fried in Game 1 — a role he fulfilled last year, when he threw 6 1/3 shutout innings, only to see the bullpen undo his stellar work in a 3-1 loss — and Schlittler in Game 2, the Yankees decided to give Schlittler the ball in Tuesday’s opener and have Fried start Game 2. Though the Blue Jays’ Dylan Cease kept the race close, the 25-year-old Schlittler made an overwhelming case for the AL Cy Young Award by leading the league in fWAR, bWAR (7.1), ERA, and xERA, and ranking a very close second in FIP, innings, strikeouts, and strikeout-walk differential — all in his first full major league season. Schlittler’s four-seamer gets the headlines, and rightly so; its 98.0-mph average velocity is second only to that of the Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski this year and the fifth-highest of the Statcast era. Batters hit just .163 and slugged .263 against the pitch with a 34.8% whiff rate; its 28-run value rnked second, one run behind The Miz. Schlittler’s sinker is similarly stifling, and his cutter a very effective weapon against lefties, who hit .188 and slugged .316 against the pitch while whiffing on 21.2% of their swings. The Walpole, Massachusetts native feeds off the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, and given last year’s eight scoreless innings with 12 strikeouts in the deciding game of the series, he’s shown that even when the stakes are at their highest, his emotions won’t get in his way.

Fried missed about 12 weeks due to a recurrent bone bruise in his left elbow, but when he was available, he pitched even better than he did last year, when he was the Yankees’ top starter. He was elite at preventing hard contact, allowing just four homers in his 112 2/3 innings. Both his 85.9-mph average exit velocity and 29.8% hard-hit rate placed in the 96th percentile, with his 2.7% barrel rate in the 99th. His cutter, curve, and changeup, all of which he throws primarily to righties, each held batters to a .226 slugging or lower with whiff rates of 26.9% or higher; meanwhile lefties slugged just .302 against his sinker, which he threw them nearly half the time. Lefties and righties combined to go just 1-for-32 against Fried’s sweeper.

Cole made an uneven return this season from his March 2025 Tommy John surgery, putting up a 2.66 ERA and a 2.64 FIP in July and August, with eight quality starts in 10 turns; he gave up just six homers in those 61 innings, but served up 16 in his 66 innings on either side of that stretch, with just four quality starts in his other 12 outings. The 36-year-old righty’s four-seamer averaged 96.8 mph, nearly a full mile per hour faster than before surgery, but his knuckle curve was hammered for a .286 average and .540 slugging percentage, with its whiff rate dropping from 30.1% in 2024 to 20.5% in ’26. He’s shown signs of righting the ship in his last two starts, though it’s fair to wonder if the Yankees aren’t making a mistake by bypassing Rodón, who has pitched very well in limited duty this season, with a 1.89 ERA and a 3.44 FIP since returning from a six-week absence due to elbow inflammation.

On the other side, Gray and Tolle are likely to start Games 1 and 2, though the Red Sox won’t announce the order until Monday. Gray, who was traded from the Cardinals to the Red Sox last November, posted his lowest ERA since his 64-inning rookie season, that while adopting a more contact-oriented approach. He increased the usage of his cutter at the expense of his four-seamer and traded some strikeouts for grounders; while both his FIP and xERA were nearly identical to last season’s marks, he lowered his ERA by a run and a half per nine. Batters hit just .217 with a .299 slugging percentage against his sinker, and batted .137 with a .236 slugging and a 38.3% whiff rate against his sweeper. The 36-year-old righty really enjoys pitching against the Yankees, for whom he scuffled in 2017–18; he no-hit them for 7 1/3 inning on June 28.

Tolle, a 23-year-old rookie who placed 18th on our Top 100 Prospects list as a 55-FV prospect in the spring, has been the team’s top starter in terms of FIP, WAR, and strikeout rate. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound southpaw has a 96-mph four-seamer that particularly befuddles righties, holding them to a .173 average and .291 slugging percentage with a 28.2% whiff rate this season. Batters of both hands combined to hit .157 and slug .271 with a 43.4% whiff rate against his curve, and a .229 average and a .352 slugging percentage with a 28.3% whiff rate against his cutter. He dominated the Yankees in two first-half starts, holding them to four hits and one run while striking out 18 in 13 innings.

Suarez, whom the Red Sox signed to a five-year, $140 million deal in January, put up nearly identical numbers to those from his final year in Philadelphia, though an uptick in his pulled-air rate (from 15.1% to 17.7%) rates as a slight concern. The sinkerballer did adjust his approach somewhat, throwing more four-seamers and fewer changeups, particularly to lefties. Batters hit .223 and slugged .235 without a homer against the “heater” (which averaged just 91.5 mph), and slugged .380 or lower against every pitch of his except the changeup. His curve (thrown more to righties) and slider (thrown more to lefties) produced whiff rates of 37.6% and 45.6%, respectively.

Bullpens

The Red Sox and Yankees had the majors’ two lowest bullpen ERAs (2.99 and 3.15, respectively), with the former leading the majors in FIP (3.52) and the latter fourth in the AL in that category (3.92). With this short series, both teams will likely find room in the bullpen for a back-end starter or two, and possibly a rehabbing one who couldn’t build up his pitch count in time — and that’s just part of the shadow cast upon both by injuries.

For the Yankees, Bednar has been a reliable closer since being acquired from the Pirates at the 2025 trade deadline (Camilo Doval and Jake Bird, both acquired the same day, were dealt away at this deadline). Bednar’s splitter — which averaged 90.8 mph, providing a good contrast to a four-seamer that averaged 96.1 mph — is nearly untouchable; batters hit .149 and slugged .189 against it with a 35.2% whiff rate. With the loss of Fernando Cruz to a minor UCL tear, Headrick is now the top setup man. After totaling just 51 2/3 major league innings over the three seasons prior to this one, he emerged as a very effective late-game arm thanks to a slider that generated a 47.6% whiff rate. He had a substantial reverse split, with a .330 wOBA allowed against lefties and a .269 mark against righties; same-side hitters slugged well above .500 against both his four-seamer and sinker, but righties did much less damage. Blackburn, who had never spent a full season in a bullpen prior to this one, brought a starter’s arsenal to the role, mainly going sinker-cutter-sweeper against righties (whom he held to a .238 wOBA) and changeup-curve-cutter-sinker against lefties (while holding them to a .283 wOBA).

Hill, a lefty specialist, was rocked for seven homers in just 104 plate appearances against righties, though he was able to get nearly identical groundball rates just below 69% against batters of both hands. Weathers and Warren are starters who could find work here. Weathers pitched very well before suffering a flexor strain in late August; he did not go on a rehab assignment but has been throwing live batting practice sessions. Warren, who was exceptional through the first two months of the season and in September, could provide length if a starter has to take an early exit. With Clarke Schmidt shut down due to biceps neuritis just after returning from Tommy John surgery, two righties who were late-August pickups, Michael Fulmer (released by the Angels) and John Schreiber (picked off waivers from the Royals), could be in the bullpen mix as well.

For the Red Sox, Chapman is coming off one of his best seasons at age 38, having converted 35 out of 37 save chances. His four-seamer isn’t quite what it used to be — the pitch averaged 96.9 mph, down from 98.4 mph last year — but his sinker, slider, and splitter (the last of those mainly for righties) are the better pitches anyway, with batters hitting .129 or lower and slugging .224 or lower against all three, with whiff rates of 30.8% on the sinker, 41.3% on the splitter, and 47.1% on the slider. Whitlock, who set career bests in ERA, FIP, and walk rate this year, held lefties to a .239 wOBA and righties to a .224 wOBA. Miller, a deadline pickup from the Giants, helped cover for the loss of Justin Slaten to elbow inflammation. He’s reworked his approach from one centered around a four-seamer and changeup to one that’s mostly sinker-slider. While his walk rate was uncomfortably high, he did a great job of suppressing hard contact, with an 84.7-mph average exit velo and 26.3% hard-hit rate.

Bello, who put up a 7.18 ERA as a starter but a 1.98 mark as a reliever, mostly while pitching behind an opener, can provide length. Crochet, who spent parts of three seasons pitching out of the bullpen for the White Sox before moving to the rotation, has been reaching 96 mph while throwing live batting practice and could be part of the high-leverage mix if the Red Sox deem him ready.

Offenses

While the Yankees ranked second in the AL in home runs and stolen bases, and third in walk rate, theirs was a middling offense on the whole, with the league’s fourth-lowest batting average and third-lowest on-base percentage. The team did rank third in wRC+ against lefties, compared to ninth against righties. Though Ben Rice has emerged as one of the game’s top hitters, the rest of the Yankees’ offense is particularly pedestrian without Judge. Rice hit .264/.363/.534, ranking second in the AL in slugging percentage and fourth in both homers (41) and wRC+ (149) while splitting his time between DH and first base. From there it’s a substantial step down to their next-best hitters, deadline acquisition Luis García Jr. (.277/.309/.521, 124 wRC+) and Cody Bellinger (.264/.338/.429, 115 wRC+). García has taken over first base duties against righties, against whom he posted a 133 wRC+ (compared to 80 against lefties), with Paul Goldschmidt handling the job against lefties. The 38-year-old Goldschmidt hit .252/.313/.452 (111 wRC+) with 18 home runs; though seven of those came against righties, he produced just a 60 wRC+ vs. them, compared to a 168 wRC+ against lefties.

Beyond that group, Jazz Chisholm Jr. turned in a disappointing season on the offensive side, hitting just .231/.312/.399 (99 wRC+) with 19 homers and a barrel rate that plummeted from 15.0% in 2025 to 8.2% this year, though his career-high 41 stolen bases ranked third in the AL. He’s just returned from a right thumb sprain. The Yankees’ third base platoon of Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario (with some José Caballero thrown in) combined for a 74 wRC+ and 0.2 WAR, rating as the biggest trouble spot at the position among AL contenders. The Yankees may instead turn to Anthony Volpe, who made his first major league appearance at third base on Friday but didn’t handle a single chance, to handle the hot corner. While recovering from October 2025 surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, Volpe was bumped off shortstop and into a utility role; his .245/.321/.336 (88 wRC+) looks robust compared to the other options, though Caballero (.231/.290/.365, 83 wRC+) did steal 34 bases. Rookie shortstop George Lombard Jr., who debuted on August 4 after just 56 games at Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre, hit .237/.285/.414 (93 wRC+) with seven homers.

Catcher Austin Wells was lousy on the offensive side (.186/.292/.332, 72 wRC+), and Heliot Ramos, a deadline acquisition from the Giants, began his time in pinstripes by going 5-for-47; he hit .245/.305/.411 (99 wRC+) overall. On the other hand, rookie Spencer Jones has been a pleasant surprise, slashing .245/.313/.429 (106 wRC+) with 11 homers and 10 steals to offset a 36.3% strikeout rate; he’s held down center field in the absence of the injured Trent Grisham, who’s been out since September 5 due to a Grade 2 right hamstring strain but may be in play for a roster spot.

If Judge does return, he’d likely be consigned to DH duty, which would reduce both García and Goldschmidt to bench roles. Also in the mix for a bench spot is Giancarlo Stanton, who played just 24 games and hit .256/.302/.422 (102 wRC+) with three home runs before being sidelined by a moderate-grade right calf strain; he suffered a setback in the same calf in June, then strained his other calf in a fall in August. He’s been taking live batting practice, and could serve as a high-leverage pinch-hitter for Wells or one of the third basemen.

Boston’s offense ranked fourth in on-base percentage, fifth in batting average, and sixth in stolen bases, but just 12th in home runs. The team comes into this series with a lot of generally positive news on the injury front. On Sunday, first baseman Willson Contreras played his first game since September 17 and his fifth of the month after missing time due to a left hamstring strain and a hit-by-pitch-induced bruised knuckle on his right hand. He’s the team’s top hitter, having batted .275/.386/.516 (151 wRC+) with 27 homers. Also on Sunday, center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, who missed three weeks due to a right quad strain, played his third game since returning; he had played a pair against the Guardians on Wednesday and Thursday before sitting out Friday’s doubleheader against against the Cubs with right hamstring tightness. Rafaela put together a breakout season, batting .283/.319/.442 with 16 homers, 17 steals, and career highs in both wRC+ (109) and WAR (4.1).

Meanwhile, left fielder Roman Anthony and shortstop Trevor Story both returned from prolonged absences on August 30 and have been much more productive than they were prior to their injuries, though small-sample caveats apply. Anthony, who missed nearly four months due to a torn tendon in his right ring finger, has slashed .262/.321/.4765 (119 wRC+) since returning. Story has hit .292/.322/.442 (108 wRC+) after missing three and a half months due to surgery to repair a sports hernia. Of more concern, catcher Adley Rutschman, who was on the injured list due to left wrist inflammation when he was dealt to the Red Sox as part of a seven-player blockbuster at the trade deadline, has hit just .222/.278/.410 (88 wRC+) after batting .251/.331/.433 (116 wRC+) before the trade. The team will miss DH/catcher/first baseman Mickey Gasper, who hit a potent .251/.357/.466 (130 wRC+) with 10 homers in just 225 plate appearances; his season may be done due to a right biceps injury. That likely means Jarren Duran, who has hit just .207/.266/.361 (69 wRC+) during what’s been a rough season, will start in left field against righties while Anthony serves as the DH. Jahmai Jones, who has hit just .206/.298/.369 (88 wRC+) overall but .308/.408/.585 (176 wRC+) in 76 plate appearances since being traded in mid-July by the Tigers, will start at DH against lefties, with Anthony in the outfield.

Rounding out the lineup are right fielder Wilyer Abreu (.248/.327/.446, 112 wRC+) and third baseman Caleb Durbin (.248/.332/.378, 100 wRC+), with switch-hitting Nick Sogard (.255/.342/.385, 105 wRC+) returning to the keystone after doing the bulk of the first base work during Contreras’ absence.

Defenses

The Yankees are an above-average defensive team, ranking 13th in the majors in DRS (27), 12th in FRV (9), and eighth in Defensive Efficiency (.711). Their biggest strength is pitch-framing, as they ranked third in our framing metric, FRM (8.3), and second in that of Statcast (12). Wells was above-average in both, as was light-hitting backup Ali Sánchez. Rice (-8 DRS, -5 FRV) was rough at first base, which is why DHing him is the Yankees’ preference; García and Goldschmidt were both above-average at the spot by both metrics. Chisholm (-6 DRS, 8 FRV), and Lombard (5 DRS, -2 FRV) had comparatively wide spreads in their metrics, while Rosario was shaky enough as the short half of the third base platoon (-6 DRS, -6 FRV) that the Yankees are willing to consider Volpe even with his minimal experience there.

In the outfield, Bellinger led all left fielders with 21 DRS and shared the lead with 8 FRV. Grisham (-8 DRS, -5 FRV) was enough of a disappointment in center that retaking his job from Jones (-4 DRS, -3 FRV) is no guarantee even if he’s healthy. Ramos, who previously put up double-digit negative marks in one metric or another in left field and center, was pretty wobbly in his limited exposure in right (-5 FRV, -1 DRS in just 146 2/3 innings).

The Red Sox ranked third in the majors in Defensive Runs Saved (70) and sixth in Fielding Run Value (22), though just 20th in Defensive Efficiency (.694) and 28th in our framing metric, FRM (-6.3). Their outfield defense is elite. Rafaela led all center fielders in DRS (21) and placed second in FRV (16), and Abreu led right fielders in DRS (28) and tied for seventh in FRV (4), while Duran was solidly above average in left (3 DRS, 4 FRV).

At the infield corners, Durban placed third in DRS (13) and tied for fourth in FRV (6), and Contreras was essentially average at first. In the middle infield, Sogard (-1 DRS, 1 FRV) and Story (-4 DRS, -1 FRV) were close to average in a comparatively small sample; Isiah Kiner-Falefa can offer a defensive upgrade on either of them if the Red Sox are willing to settle for lesser offense.

All told, this is not only a very different looking series from last year and years past, it’s also one that might not entirely come into focus until the final rosters are submitted on Tuesday morning. Still, it’s two storied rivals putting their seasons on the line, and whatever shape they’re in, this should be worth watching.

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Associate – Baseball Research and Development
Associate – Baseball Systems

The Milwaukee Brewers have multiple internship positions available. These are paid positions with flexible start dates depending on your availability. All roles are based in Milwaukee.

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For more information about our Crew, other benefits and insight into our Club culture please visit our Careers Page.

Associate – Baseball Research and Development

Job Description
As part of the Baseball Research and Development Department, the associate will work on dedicated projects to deliver research and tools to improve organizational decision-making. The associate will learn and gain experience within the Baseball Research and Development team, while collaborating with other departments across all of Baseball Operations.

Core duties for this role include, but are not limited to:

• Work with Baseball R&D and Baseball Operations to understand analytical needs and implement best practices for meeting those needs
• Investigate emerging data sources and identify potential for predictive value and actionable insights to improve decision making
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The ideal candidate will have a bachelor’s degree (B.S./B.A.) or in the current pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Operations Research, or related field from four-year college or university. Advanced degree or current pursuit of advanced degree in one of the areas mentioned above or a related field is desirable.

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The Research and Development Department is a critical component to the success of the Milwaukee Brewers organization. We develop the information used in decision-making processes across all other departments. You will be given the opportunity to work on new and innovative research problems and work with personnel across the front-office to see the implementation. We strive to discover the most accurate and actionable information possible to help the Brewers win the World Series.

To Apply
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Associate – Baseball Systems

Job Description
As part of the Baseball Systems department, this role will work closely with the Data Engineering and Software Engineering groups to enhance existing tools and processes and build new ones using technologies that bridge multiple engineering disciplines.

Core duties for this role include, but are not limited to:

• Investigate user identified data quality concerns relating to areas such as game statistics, scouting reports, and transactions. Diagnose and fix the issue(s).
• Load new datasets from vendors into internal databases and make the data available to users.
• Develop user interface (UI) components using front-end technologies, ensuring user-friendly design.

The ideal candidate will be currently enrolled pursuing a bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; or related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Our Team
Baseball Systems is the software backbone of Baseball Operations. We provide data and decision-making tools for analysts, coaches, and front office personnel to help win a World Series. Our department consists of a team of data engineers and a team of software engineers who work across all different aspects of Baseball Operations providing support and tools relevant to each group. We work directly with stakeholders in every department of Baseball Operations to ensure every project we work on drives value to the organization and helps us win more games on the field. We help drive technical innovation to find new ways to solve baseball problems.

To Apply
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The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Milwaukee Brewers.

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Approach-wise, he is a hitter who doesn’t get too deep into the weeds when it comes to his craft (my recent conversation with him brought to mind this summer’s Talks Hitting interview with Mike Trout). I had gotten that impression speaking to DeLauter three years ago when he was playing for the High-A Lake County Captains, and not much has changed.

“I try not to think too much about my swing,” the 24-year-old outfielder told me last week. “Of course, there are small adjustments here and there, but I’ve swung the same way my whole life. It’s what got me here, and it is what’s going to carry me through. I’m the same dude, the same guy.”

What works works, but at the same time, the 2022 first-rounder out of James Madison University now has access to more data than ever before. He must tap into it. Right?

“I don’t like looking at that stuff,” DeLauter stated. “I’m more old-school. It’s about what feels good [and] what looks good. That’s what I care about. There are guys who play that kind of game, but they’re better thinkers. I’m not that good of a thinker for things like that. For me, it’s about trusting my roots.”

Fair enough, but even so, he’d been in the lineup against hard-throwing left-hander Payton Tolle the night before, and now he was about to go up against right-handed spin monster Sonny Gray. The approach against such disparate hurlers can’t be exactly the same?

“I mean, it is though,” DeLauter replied to my supposition. “Sit on a fastball and [bleeping] hit it. Whatever they throw me in the strike zone, whether it’s the fastball or something else, if it looks good, I’m going. My goal is to hit the ball as hard as I can and pray to the baseball gods that they take care of it.

“I mean, I’m not going up there blindly,” he went on to clarify. “I am looking at the report in the dugout before I go up to the plate. I have their fastball velocity in the back of my mind, but outside of that, I basically just go up there and hit.”

And again, DeLauter has been hitting very well. With October baseball on the doorstep, how would he assess his season to date?

“My only goal for the year was to stay as healthy as possible and contribute any way that I can,” DeLauter said. “I wanted to play as many games as I could. I’ve had some nicks and bruises here and there, but overall I have done a good job of managing myself, obviously with the help of our staff. I grade my season as a success in that way. The numbers are going to fluctuate from year to year. For me, availability is the best ability. That’s what I’m chasing.”

———

RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Chase Utley went 1 for 19 against Jake Arrieta.

Justin Turner went 1 for 23 against Jon Lester.

Fernando Tatis Jr. went 1 for 15 against Kyle Hendricks.

Cody Ross went 1 for 15 against Jason Hammel.

Jim Thome went 0 for 18 against John Lackey.

———

Pete Crow-Armstrong has batted out of the leadoff position for much of the season, and it’s hard to argue with the results. The Chicago Cubs have scored the most runs in the senior circuit, and the presumptive NL MVP has dominated opposing pitchers to the tune of a 156 wRC+. Moreover, PCA has launched 45 home runs and swiped 41 bags.

I was on hand when Craig Counsell addressed the 24-year-old superstar’s spot in the batting order in late August. One of the things he touched on was the value of having an especially dangerous hitter at the plate to begin the game.

“I think that’s real,” the Cubs manager said in reply to Jeff Agrest of the Chicago Sun-Times (apologies if I’m misremembering who broached the subject). “Jim Leyland used to talk about that a little bit. He led off Cliff Floyd in 1998, I believe. There was just a presence there for the opposing pitcher immediately, from the get-go, that I thought he was right about. Pete is absolutely providing that.”

———

The Cubs won a Wild Card series against the San Diego Padres last year, only to then lose to the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS. How are they set up to perform in the about-to-begin postseason? Jed Hoyer, the team’s president of baseball operations, was pragmatic when I asked him that question on Friday.

“I’ve been doing this too long to try to predict that,” Hoyer stated. “There are years you go in feeling fantastic — everyone is healthy, everything is lined up — and you play poorly. There are also years where things are in question and you go in and play great. In the playoffs you’re playing against a really good opponent. We’re a really good team, but trying to predict how we are going to perform based on how we’re performing now… I don’t think that really ever bears fruit. Like I said, we have a good team and we’re going to play a good team. Hopefully we’ll show our our best selves when we get there.”

The Cubs came into today’s regular season finale having lost 11 of their last 18 games.

———

A quiz:

Every active franchise has thrown at least one no-hitter in the modern era (since 1901). Which franchise has produced the most no-hitters?

Bonus question: Which pitcher threw the most no-hitters for that franchise?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

SABR announced the finalists for its Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award. More information on the finalists — Sarah Langs, Jeneane “Lefty” Lesko, Maud Nelson, Janet Marie Smith, and Lisa Turbitt — can be found here.

Denny Matthews called his 8,000th game for the Kansas City Royals on Friday. The 83-year-old broadcaster was behind the mic when the franchise played its first game in 1969, and he plans to return for his 59th season in 2027.

The Detroit Tigers announced multi-year contract extensions with television play-by-play voice Jason Benetti and radio play-by-play voice Dan Dickerson. As Tigers fans can attest, both are among the best in the business.

Jim Rittwage, a right-hander who logged a 4.15 ERA over 26 innings while appearing in eight games for the Cleveland Indians in 1970, died on August 28 at age 81 (per Baseball Player Passings). On September 25 of that year he moved from the mound to third base for three batters, then returned to the hill. Six days earlier he’d gone the distance in his only career start, earning his lone win.

———

The answer to the quiz is the Dodgers, with 22. The answer to the bonus question is Sandy Koufax, with four.

———

Anthony Seigler was solid with the stick this season. Serving in a part-time role with the Boston Red Sox, the 27-year-old infielder not only logged a 102 wRC+ over 173 plate appearances, he contributed multiple clutch hits along the way.

Who most stood out among the pitchers he faced?

“I would say Dylan Cease and Yoshinobu Yamamoto,” Seigler told me recently. “One of those two. Pick your poison. Both know how to command the zone and keep you off balance. It’s fun to compete against them, but yeah, those are two pitchers where I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty good arm.’”

Seigler went 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts versus Yamamoto, and 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk versus Cease. Outside the similarities noted above, how do the right-handers compare?

“As far as movement type and how they’re going to attack you, they’re different,” said Seigler. “Yamamoto has great stuff and can overpower you, but he’s really more moving the ball around, moving your eyes. He does that really well. Cease is more like a power pitcher. He has a great mix. But they both know how to locate and keep you off balance. That’s what makes them difficult, and why they’re two of the best pitchers in [MLB].”

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Some have speculated that the Arizona Diamondbacks will part ways with Torey Lovullo if the team fails to reach the postseason. Were that to happen — the Snakes’ fate will be determined this afternoon — assigning blame to the franchise’s all-time-winningest manager seems a stretch at best. Despite multiple issues beyond his control — Ketel Marte’s AWOL episode is especially notable — Lovullo’s club comes into the final day of the campaign with 86 wins, a total exceeding that of three AL playoff-qualifiers. Dismissing him on an October-or-bust premise would be unwarranted.

Those things said, I recently talked to Lovullo about the collaborative relationship he has with his bench coach, Jeff Banister. In-game decisions are a big part of it.

“They’re fast-moving conversations,” explained Lovullo, who is in his 10th season at the helm in Arizona. “Banny gives me simple reminders. He gives me suggestions. He gives me his gut feel. Then we chop it up as fast as we possibly can to make the decision within the game.

“We trust our instincts and we trust the matchups,” the veteran manager went on to say. “We’re drawing from the same resources throughout the course of the game. Projections for certain matchups are provided to us. We’re looking at the same data points, and we’re watching the game with the same type of eyes, so we come to some really fast conclusions. Putting the guys in the best position isn’t easy, but we draw from a lot of resources and are looking through the same scope every single inning.”

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Ja-wook Koo is slashing .369/.456/.576 with 15 home runs and a 174 wRC+ for the KBO’s Samsung Lions. The 33-year-old outfielder played for Team Korea in this year’s WBC.

Yeong Hyun Park is 6-0 with 27 saves and a 2.54 ERA over 56-and-two-thirds innings for the KBO’s KT Wiz. The 22-year-old right-hander, who also represented Korea in the WBC, has 87 saves across the past three seasons.

Andrés Machado is 3-1 with 35 saves and a 1.20 ERA over 52-and-a-third innings for NPB’s Orix Buffaloes. A member of Team Venezuela in this year’s WBC, the 33-year-old right-hander pitched for the Kansas City Royals in 2017, and for the Washington Nationals from 2021-2023.

Darwinzon Hernández has a 1.51 ERA, a 2.70 FIP, and a 29.9% strikeout rate over 44 appearances comprising 41-and-third innings for NPB’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. The 29-year-old Venezuelan southpaw pitched for the Boston Red Sox from 2019-2022.

———

A few accomplishments, milestones, and leaders:

Matt Olson is poised to play in his 944th consecutive game today. In doing so, he will have appeared in all 162 in each of the past five seasons.

Kenley Jansen goes into the final game of the season with 498 career saves, Manny Machado with 399 career home runs.

Pete Alonso leads the junior circuit in home runs (43) and RBIs (113). Along with Yordan Alvarez Junior Caminero, and Pete Crow-Armstrong, Alonso is the only player in MLB to both drive in and score at least 100 runs.

Gabriel Moreno leads the senior circuit with a .311 batting average, while Luis Arraez — the three-time batting champion is unlikely to play today due to an ankle injury — is at .310. If Moreno finishes on top he will be the first catcher to lead the league since Buster Posey in 2012.

Eduardo Valencia’s .344 batting average and 180 wRC+ are tops in the junior circuit among batters who have come to the plate at least 100 times. The Detroit Tigers rookie has 134 PAs.

———

Left on the cutting-room floor from Tuesday’s Challenging Career Quiz installment with Ron Coomer were his memories of a southpaw who amassed 219 wins and 42.5 WAR while pitching for six teams over 20 big-league seasons.

“I remember some good matchups against guys who played the cat-and-mouse game with you,” the infielder-turned-Chicago-Cubs-broadcast-analyst told me. “Kenny Rogers was one guy like that. He was great at pitching to a side of the plate. The ball would get there in three different ways. It would get there this way, that way, the other way, cutting it, sinking it — and they would all be on the inside corner or just off the inside corner. He would knock you down, too. There was that intimidation factor he wanted to play with you. And he was good. He ended up being my teammate and I got to watch it from third base. There would be someone at the plate and I’d be thinking, ‘This guy doesn’t have a chance.’”

———

A random obscure former player snapshot:

Scott Loucks recorded the first of his 21 career hits for a team that reached the postseason for the first time in franchise history. Pinch-hitting for Joaquin Andujar on September 3, 1980, the Anchorage, Alaska-born outfielder stroked a single off of John Candelaria in a 10-4 Houston Astros loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium. The knock came in his initial time at the dish. Two days earlier, he had made his MLB debut as a late-inning defensive replacement for longtime Astros stalwart Terry Puhl.

Five years later, he notched the last of his hits in flip-flopped fashion. Wrapping up his 73-game major-league tenure in a Pirates uniform, Loucks lashed a double off of Houston southpaw Bob Knepper in a late-May affair at the Astrodome. His geographical background also bears noting. One of 13 Alaska natives in MLB history, Loucks attended high school in Hawaii, a state that has produced 50 big-leaguers.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans and Ken Rosenthal teamed up to explain why the Cincinnati Reds remain in limbo while other small-market clubs succeed.

Jarren Duran has 20 home runs, 21 stolen bases, and a 70 wRC+. Talk Sox’s Maddie Landis explained how the outfielder’s 20/20 season is the worst in MLB’s live-ball era.

Lookout Landing’s Kate Preusser checked in with Mississauga, Ontario native Josh Naylor, who is wrapping up his first full season as a Seattle Mariner.

Former Chicago White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper passed away earlier this week at age 70. Scott Merkin has the story at MLB.com.

MLB.com’s Thomas Harding wrote about how the Rockies’ rotation shortcomings have the club searching for answers going into 2027.

———

RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Eight pitchers have been credited with 15 or more wins this season, with none of them reaching the 20 mark. In 1976, a total of 34 pitchers were credited with 15 or more wins, with eight of them reaching the 20 mark.

Justin Verlander has fanned 3,560 batters and allowed 374 home runs. Max Scherzer (who is scheduled to pitch today) has fanned 3,550 batters and allowed 369 home runs.

The five teams in the AL West have combined for a minus-469 run differential.

Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson has stolen 46 bases in 60 attempts.. The Houston Astros have stolen 50 bases in 72 attempts as a team.

The Cleveland Guardians are the only team that hasn’t had a batter hit at least 20 home runs this season. Angel Martinez leads the club with 18.

Chicago White Sox pitchers have plunked 90 batters, the most in the majors. White Sox batters have reached base via a HPB a total of 100 times, tying them with the Los Angeles Angels for the most in the majors.

Colson Montgomery’s 225 strikeouts are the most in a single season in MLB history. Moreover, since July 28 the 24-year-old shortstop is batting .150 and has fanned 94 times in 218 trips to the plate. Over that same span, Munetaka Murakami is batting .167 and has fanned 97 times in 245 trips to the plate.

On today’s date in 1935, the Chicago Cubs won their 21st consecutive game — and their 100th on the season — to clinch the National League pennant. Stan Hack tripled home the deciding run in the ninth inning of the 5-3 conquest of the St. Louis Cardinals.

On today’s date in 1964, Johnny Callison launched three home runs, only to have his effort go for naught as the Philadelphia Phillies fell to the Milwaukee Braves by a score of 12-8. The defeat, their seventh in a row, knocked the Phillies out of first place. They went on to lose the next three, completing a collapse from what had been a six-and-half-game lead with just 14 games remaining on the schedule.

On tomorrow’s date in 1911, the New York Highlanders (they became known as the Yankees two years later) stole 15 bases and were caught stealing five times in a 19-12 win over the St. Louis Browns.

Players born on today’s date include Bo Hart, a second baseman whose MLB career comprised 88 games for the St. Louis Cardinals across the 2003-2004 seasons. The Creswell, Oregon native began with a bang… only to fizzle and fade away. Hart went 28-for-68 (.412) over his first 15 contests, then just 56-for-241 (.232) thereafter. His given first name was Bodhi.

Also born on today’s date was Doug Konieczny, who along with Steve Gromek, Ted Kazanski, John Paciorek, and Tom Paciorek, is one of five players in MLB history to have attended Hamtramck, Michigan’s St. Ladislaus High School. A right-hander, Konieczny went 7-18 with a 4.93 ERA over 221 innings with the Houston Astros from 1973-1977.

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We’ve made it to the final weekend of the regular season, and while all but two of the 12 playoff teams have been determined, two divisions titles and one Wild Card berth are still up for grabs. Both the Guardians and White Sox have already clinched a spot in the American League bracket, but only one game separates them in the standings. Cleveland, the first-place team, needs to win the division outright because Chicago owns the tiebreaker. The stakes are high; the victor earns the second seed in the league, a first-round bye, and home-field advantage in the Division Series, while the loser has to play the entire best-of-three Wild Card Series on the road.

The club that finishes second will face either the Astros or the Rangers, who both lost Friday night and fell to 79-81. There’s a very real chance that AL West winner will become the first playoff team ever to finish a full-length season with a losing record. Houston holds the tiebreaker. This race is emblematic of two things wrong with the current rules: 1) We should not allow losing teams to make the postseason, and 2) ties should be settled by one-game playoffs, not math. As if to provide further support for my second point, over in the National League, the surging Diamondbacks are making a last-gasp bid to overcome the reeling Phillies for the final Wild Card spot. Riding a six-game winning streak into Saturday, Arizona is just one game behind the Phillies, but crucially, the Snakes would get in if they finish with the same record. The two teams split their six regular-season matchups — head-to-head record is the first tiebreaker — but the Diamondbacks have the better intra-divisional record, which is the second tiebreaker. Goofy! It’s still going to be a fun baseball weekend, and the playoffs are sure to be a thrill, but think of how much more excitement there would be if we had not one, not two, but three Game 163s on Monday. What could have been.

Before we get to this week’s mailbag, I have one quick programming note. We’ll still be doing our weekly mailbag during the postseason, but we might move around the specific day it runs depending on the playoff schedule. As we did last year, our plan is to do a mailbag before every postseason round, beginning with the Division Series. Also, in case you missed David Appelman’s announcement from Thursday, this year you will need a FanGraphs Membership to read our postseason coverage. You can find all the details in David’s post, but considering our mailbags are also exclusive to FanGraphs Members, most of you reading this probably won’t notice the change. However, what you will notice and appreciate is the other major part of David’s announcement: This October, we’re committed to having staff at every World Series game, allowing for additional reported work and greater access to players and team personnel, with more in-person coverage throughout the earlier rounds as well. In recent years, we’ve had in-person World Series coverage only when the games were played in a city where one of our writers lived. Now, we’ll be there no matter what. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to both keep reading this mailbag and get access to our postseason coverage, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.

__

Hey FanGraphs,

Baseball Learner

Jon Becker: Hey Baseball Learner! I’ve answered a handful of “I bet this guy is way up there on this list!” mailbag questions, and in most cases, the question-asker is underestimating just how long baseball’s history is, and the player-season in question really isn’t that high on the list. That’s not the case with your question. Through play on Thursday, Miller upped his WAR since you asked your question to 3.8, in 69 innings pitched. That works out to .055 WAR per inning pitched, sixth all time among the 31,064 player-seasons with at least 40 innings. Here’s the top 10:

This list is unsurprisingly dominated by elite reliever seasons, shortened starter seasons (whether due to injury in Jacob deGrom’s case or fewer unearthed games for the four Negro Leagues pitchers), and of course, the best pitching season all time: 1999 Pedro Martínez.

Also high on the list from this season are Jhoan Duran (22nd), Josh Hader (62nd), and Trevor Megill (77th). Among starters, Jacob Misiorowski leads with .038 WAR per inning, good for 126th all time.

__

FG,

Yer Main (wOBA) Guy

Davy Andrews: Main Guy, you are not wrong and you are not alone. I asked around, and unfortunately it sounds like we don’t even calculate pitcher wRC+. However, I look at pitcher wOBA all the time, and I would look at it even more often were it more easily accessible. That’s not to say that it’s necessarily better than the other options. As a proxy for true talent level, I quickly pulled every pitcher’s Statcast-era performance according to a bunch of easily accessible metrics and calculated their correlation to the next year’s ERA.

As you can see, xwOBA is as predictive as xFIP. wOBA’s better than ERA, but not quite as good as FIP. In other words, they’re perfectly reasonable ways to assess a pitcher, but it’s not like they’re so good that we should be out there convincing people to junk their preferred ERA estimators.

As for why they’re not more widespread, you’re probably aware of the reasons. The obvious one is that people have spent their entire lives viewing pitching through the lens of ERA. That’s their primary language, and it’s the reason that all our advanced ERA estimators (and even PitchingBot!) are formatted so you can read them the way you’d read an ERA. We could certainly do that with wOBA and xwOBA too, and maybe that would make people a bit more receptive to them, but you still run into the fact that they’re not all that much better.

Then you have the overkill factor. There are so many ERA estimators out there already. The Onion is out here roasting FanGraphs specifically for making up new junk stats, and even drummers are getting in on the action. Drummers! Each pitcher’s player page already lists ERA, ERA-, xERA, FIP, FIP-, xFIP, xFIP-, SIERA, and botERA. I like pitcher wOBA and xwOBA, and I’m as curious as you are about whether wRC+ might be helpful too. And, of course, I am generally in favor of more information. I am on your side. But I can understand why adding them to the site isn’t a priority.

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Hi!

Thanks!
Russell

Michael Baumann: You’re so greedy, Russell, sneaking two unrelated questions into the same mailbag email. But we aim to provide value for money here at the FanGraphs factory, so let’s press on.

To your first question: Absolutely not. I know that baseball is a kids’ game and all, but these are adults, and we’re not going to be throwing our toys at a passing baseball like a seven-year-old having a sugar crash. It’s undignified. I won’t have it. You can tell how much I hate this idea because I’m placing Rule no. 1 of improv comedy — “Always say, ‘Yes, and…’” — right in the oubliette.

The only scenario in which I’d support changing the throwing-the-glove rule is one in which a fielder may throw his glove in an attempt to knock down a would-be home run ball — but if he misses and the glove goes into the stands, he may not ask for it back. It’s gone forever. You’ve got to break in a new glove from scratch.

If the fielder misses the ball and the glove lands in the field of play, he can have it back at the end of the game, but he has to play the rest of the game barehanded. If the manager wants to have a left fielder with a full set of equipment, he has to burn a substitution. You had your chance to play with a glove, and you decided you’d rather throw it at a fly ball.

Even if the rule changed, I don’t think anyone would throw his glove at a passing fly ball. For starters, a baseball traveling at 100 miles an hour has a ton of inertia, and even if you did hit it, I don’t know how much a glove would do to stop it without a human arm attached. Even if you did knock it down and keep it in the field of play, you’re now chasing a fugitive baseball in God-knows-what direction without a glove of your own. You might’ve just changed an outside-the-park homer to an inside-the-park homer.

On to question no. 2. My favorite thing to do in these mailbag columns is to cite chapter and verse from the rulebook. For instance, did you know that Rule 3.06 defines the area between the thumb and forefinger of a fielder’s glove as the “crotch?” You learn something new every time you open the rulebook. I thought the crotch was something completely different.

Anyway, Rule 5.09(a): “A batter is out when (1) His fair or foul fly ball (other than a foul tip) is legally caught by a fielder;” would seem to leave the rule open to exploitation along the terms Russell describes. And while the rulebook is littered with comments and hypotheticals to assist the umpires in executing the rules, there is no such addendum to Rule 5.09(a)(1).

Until you get to “Definitions of Terms,” way down on page 148 of the rulebook. I’ll quote again from the Holy Scripture:

“A CATCH is the act of a fielder in getting secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holding it; providing he does not use his cap, protector, pocket or any other part of his uniform in getting possession.”

So you’d better be careful what you touch the ball with when you’re juggling it. If it hits your body or the bill of your cap, it’s no longer a catch, the runner on third is going to score, and your manager is going to yell at you until you go deaf in that ear.

And later in that same paragraph, it gets worse:

“A catch also is legal if the ball is finally held by any fielder, even though juggled, or held by another fielder before it touches the ground. Runners may leave their bases the instant the first fielder touches the ball.” (Emphasis mine.)

That means the outfielder can juggle the ball until the cows come home, but if the runner has tagged up after the initial touch, he’s free to leave for the next base regardless of when the catch is completed. I guess you could gamble on the possibility that both the runner and the third base coach don’t know this rule, but the law would not be on your side.

We get rules questions like this pretty frequently, from people who watch a ton of baseball and find what look like loopholes. If you’ve been watching baseball for 20 years, you’ve never seen a clever outfielder try to juggle his way out of a sacrifice fly. That must be incomprehensible — it’s such an obvious gap in the rules, surely someone should try to exploit it!

The thing is, we’ve been playing organized baseball for 150 years now, and in that time a lot of very smart, very cunning people have spent lots of time poring over the rules looking for weaknesses. If you think you’ve found a loophole, odds are that someone — not always John McGraw, Jackie Robinson, or Don Hoak, but it’s usually literally one of those guys — has tried it already.

If the loophole did actually work, Ford Frick or Happy Chandler would come into the office the next morning and scrawl “KNOCK THAT BUSH LEAGUE NONSENSE OFF” in the rulebook, thus ruining the fun of future ballplayers and mailbag letter-writers alike.

This is a pretty common phenomenon in society at large, actually. We have a problem, we make a rule to fix the problem, the rule fixes the problem, we forget the problem ever existed, we get rid of the rule, the problem comes back. Except nowadays it’s with stuff like labor regulations, white-collar crime, and food safety, in addition to the governance of fly balls.

It’s why I’m convinced that there will be a nuclear weapon detonated in anger, somewhere in the world, by the year 2100. As soon as the Cold War is out of living memory, the atomic taboo is going to fade, and some world leader is going to think, “What was the big deal about Hiroshima anyhow?”

In short: Don’t throw your glove, stop fooling around and make the catch as quickly as possible, and someone has already tried your loophole and gotten in trouble for it. Thanks for writing in, Russell. If you ever find yourself on MLB’s rules committee, please let me know so I can move to Cambodia.

Source

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the heroics of Astros outfielder Lucas Spence and the potential for pennant races and postseasons to anoint unlikely heroes, then discuss whether the playoff format puts too much priority on divisions and should incorporate reseeding prior to and/or following the wild card round. They also follow up (28:42) on a few topics from the preceding episode (the Marlins putting starting pitchers in the pen, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s apology, Randy Johnson’s home-defense baseballs), Stat Blast (40:34) about teams improving their winning percentage in several consecutive seasons, hitters who were the worst hitter for one team and the best hitter for a different team in the same season, and franchises that have seen the most visiting teams clinch on their field, before examining (58:19) new baseball and softball TV series. Finally (1:10:51), they talk to Sam Nichols (aka “sportydolphin”) about his MLB/WPBL stats site, the challenges in bringing sabermetrics to a fledgling league and a small-sample season, the WPBL’s most valuable player, league tactics, the WPBL community, and more.

Audio intro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: Ted Berg, “Small Sample Size Song”
Audio outro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Spence story
Link to Axisa on the playoffs
Link to Paine on the playoffs
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Link to Paine on regular-season predictiveness
Link to Junk appearance
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Link to previous Guerrero comment
Link to 1995 RJ article 1
Link to 1995 RJ article 2
Link to RJ vs. Kruk
Link to RJ on EW
Link to Grichuk homer
Link to clinches spreadsheet
Link to 2009 draft first round
Link to Sam on Grichuk
Link to listener emails database
Link to Colin From Accounts wiki
Link to Team Moms: Baseball trailer
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Link to Kim K. on baseball
Link to Slo Pitch trailer
Link to Slo Pitch wiki
Link to Slo Pitch interview
Link to Heated Rivalry wiki
Link to Farmer Wants a Wife wiki
Link to previous week’s WPBL segment
Link to sportydolphin.fun
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Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, and Freddie Freeman were vital contributors to the Braves when they won the 2021 World Series after getting as far as Game 7 of the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers the year before. Half a decade later, all three remain lineup staples — the first two in Atlanta, the third in Los Angeles — but as the postseason approaches, they rate as significant concerns for their respective teams. Though neither Albies nor Riley has turned 30 yet, both have not only had disappointing seasons, they appear to be multiple years into their decline phases, held in place by a combination of loyalty, track record, and long-term extensions. Freeman is 36 years old and a future Hall of Famer nearing the end of his 10th All-Star season, but while he would seem to be on firmer footing, he’s been dealing with a power outage that has coincided with a bout of patellar tendinitis in his right knee. He’s played through it at a time when the Dodgers have dealt with bigger injury concerns, though at least he’s got a first-round bye to help him recover for a few days.

Earlier this week, I went around the diamond to identify the most notable vulnerabilities in the lineups of teams still contending for playoff spots in the American League — a companion of sorts to my annual pre-deadline Replacement Level Killers series, albeit among a more limited field. For the National League, that means the Brewers, Dodgers, Braves, Cubs, and Padres, all of whom have clinched spots (the last two of those on Thursday), plus the Phillies and Diamondbacks. Arizona trails Philadelphia by two games with three to play and has Playoff Odds of just 11.1% before accounting for the complicated and unresolved tiebreaker scenario involving those two teams.

While full-season performances play a significant part in these selections, I’m more concerned with who’s worst now, with injuries and adjustments in mind. Each position has a headliner (or two, if it’s a job share), but at several positions, I’ve noted other teams with concerns, particularly injury-related ones.

Catcher: J.T. Realmuto, Phillies

A three-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner, J.T. Realmuto once rated among the game’s top catchers, but he’s been in decline for years, and at age 35, his offensive performance has collapsed to the point that he landed on my Replacement Level Killers list in July. His .207/.286/.333 (70 wRC+) line represents career lows across the board, and while his 89.6 mph average exit velocity is in line with his recent seasons, his 5.4% barrel rate and 40.1% hard-hit rate are his lowest since 2016 and ’17, respectively. He’s struggled against lefties (.192/.293/.269, 58 wRC+) and has been particularly anemic at the plate in September (.113/.214/.177, 11 wRC+). Even those ugly small-sample splits make him look like Mike Piazza next to the roster’s other two catchers, as both Rafael Marchán and Garrett Stubbs have a sub-zero wRC+ (-24 and -1, respectively). Realmuto missed time due to back spasms in late April, and has had some notable bumps and bruises due to foul balls and hit-by-pitches as well, so it’s fair to wonder what aches and pains he’s currently playing through.

First Base: Tim Tawa and Pavin Smith, Diamondbacks

Ildemaro Vargas was sensational early in the season, opening with a 24-game hitting streak (27 games if you count the tail end of last season), but he quickly faded after a torrid April. Most of the Diamondbacks’ first base work since mid-June has been done by Tim Tawa, though Pavin Smith is back in the picture as well; the latter missed all of April and May due to left elbow inflammation, and was outrighted to Triple-A Reno during the All-Star break, but returned to both the 40-man roster and the majors less than two weeks ago. Tawa, a righty-swinging 27-year-old utilityman, has played at least three games at every position besides shortstop and catcher this year, but he’s hit just .233/.290/.392 (86 wRC+) while especially struggling in September (63 wRC+). Smith, a lefty-swinging 27-year-old, has been even less productive overall (.190/.274/.310, 63 wRC+), though he’s hitting .364/.417/.727 with two homers — including a two-run pinch-walk-off shot against the Yankees on September 19 — in 24 plate appearances since retuning.

As for Freeman, after hitting .290/.375/.487 (138 wRC+) in the first half, he’s batting .295/.351/.350 (96 wRC+) in the second. He’s been able to keep the hit parade going — that’s why he’s likely to become the next member of the 3,000 hit club some day — but has homered just once since July 4. He’s also endured the two longest extra-base hit droughts of his career, an 18-gamer from July 28 to August 16 and his current 16-gamer, dating back to September 3; he’s hit .185/.229/.185 over the latter stretch. The Dodgers need him to get right, so it’s unclear why Dave Roberts is still writing his name in the lineup every day instead of letting him rest for October.

Second Base: Ozzie Albies, Braves

Albies has been the Braves’ regular second baseman since late 2017, save for some interruptions due to injuries. The now-29-year-old switch-hitter helped the team reach the playoffs in seven of his 10 seasons, though barring a big final few games, he’s bound for his third straight campaign with less than 1.5 WAR. He’s hitting .241/.297/.398 (89 wRC+) with 22 homers and 1.2 WAR. Where he was once a real force against left-handed pitching, his wRC+ against them is below 100 wRC+ for the second straight season (97 in 259 PA), while his 84 wRC+ against lefties (in 415 PA) is just two points above his career-worst mark, set two years ago. His quality of contact hasn’t been great; he’s sporting career lows in barrel rate (3.9%), xBA (.225) and xSLG (.343). As you’ll see as you read on, the Braves have other problems on their infield as well.

Meanwhile, not only have the Phillies gone 9-12 this month while failing to sew up a playoff spot, on Thursday night Luis Arraez sprained his left ankle while running out of the baseline in an effort to avoid a tag at first base. His prognosis is unclear at this writing. In the grand scheme, the deadline acquisition of Arraez and the reshuffling of the infield that sent Bryson Stott to third base, Alec Bohm to first base, and Bryce Harper to right field has paid off, though Arraez has been the weakest link. He dipped from .324/.360/.440 (120 wRC+) to .278/.309/.369 (82 wRC+) on the offensive side, and from 9 FRV in 885.2 innings to 1 FRV in 389.2 innings on the defensive side. If the Phillies advance and he’s unable to go, interim manager Don Mattingly could undo the aforementioned position changes, but the more likely scenario would be to have Edmundo Sosa fill in. He’s hit just .246/.283/.415 (86 wRC+) and has only played 86.1 innings at the keystone this season, but historically, he has been an above-average defender at any infield spot.

Third Base: Austin Riley, Braves

Though he’s only 29 years old and has made two All-Star teams, Riley is now in his fourth straight season of decline in terms of both wRC+ and WAR, and unlike Albies, his offense has really crashed through the floor, as he’s hit .223/.294/.371 (84 wRC+) with 19 homers. While his bat speed remains exceptional, his swing choices have really suffered; he’s cut his overall swing rate from 51% to 48.7%, but his chase rate has jumped from 27.7% to 32.4%, and his 31.6% strikeout rate is his highest since his abbreviated 2019 rookie season. His quality of contact has declined, though it’s still pretty good, but with those extra strikeouts, his .214 xBA and .396 xSLG both represent career lows. As he’s signed through (gulp) 2032, the Braves have let him try to hit his way out of the slump; he’s played 156 games, and there’s no reason to think the team will change course.

On the injury front, the Cubs Alex Bregman suffered multiple facial fractures on Sunday when he was hit by a Michael Busch foul ball while in the on-deck circle. Photos posted on social media showed his left eye swollen shut.

The 32-year-old third baseman is in the midst of his best season since 2022, hitting .262/.352/.452 (124 wRC+) with 26 homers and 5.2 WAR. He has avoided an IL stint and reportedly has no vision or concussion-related issues. After lobbying manager Craig Counsell to return to the lineup on Wednesday, the plan is for him to play in the opener of Friday’s doubleheader against the Red Sox. Pedro Ramírez, a 22-year-old rookie utilityman who has hit .261/.319/.406 (100 wRC+) with good infield defense, has played third in his absence and will be on standby if Bregman experiences any setbacks.

Shortstop: Trea Turner, Phillies

Though he’s a three-time All-Star and two-time batting champion — the reigning NL champ, at that — Trea Turner has fallen apart this season. Outside of his cup-of-coffee campaign in 2015, he had never posted a wRC+ below 107 before, but he’s down to 82 this year, with his .239/.296/.377 line representing career worsts in each category even with a modest second-half rebound. He’s been getting eaten alive by sliders, sweepers, changeups, and cutters, with batting averages of .208 or lower and slugging percentages of .340 or lower against all of those offerings, and whiff rates above 35% against all but the cutters. His 34.4% chase rate is just a point off his career high, while his 88.4 mph average exit velo is a career low. On the other side of the ball, he’s dead last among shortstops with -17 DRS; his -9 FRV is only the majors’ third-lowest total, but it’s the lowest of any Phillies player who didn’t switch positions after Arraez’s arrival. If he were playing through an injury, that would at least provide some explanation for his sudden decline, but he’s gone to the post for 154 games, so it’s hard to believe he’s laboring through something significant.

While I chose to spotlight Turner, I should point out that for the entire season, Braves shortstops have accumulated just 0.5 WAR, a little over half that of the Phillies shortstops (Turner and 41 plate appearances from Sosa). Lately, the job has been shared by Ha-Seong Kim and Mauricio Dubón. Dubón has split his time between five different positions and has hit a respectable .276/.321/.395 (98 wRC+); in 448.2 innings at shortstop, he has 2 FRV and 0 DRS. Kim, however, has struggled mightily, hitting an unsightly .113/.203/.121 (-3 wRC+) in 139 plate appearances. While he topped a 100 wRC+ annually from 2022–24 with the Padres, he has been an afterthought at the plate since tearing his right labrum in late 2024, undergoing season-ending surgery, and then producing an 83 wRC+ last year with the Rays — who let him go on waivers seven months after signing him to a two-year, $29 million deal — and Braves. A torn ligament in his right middle finger, suffered in January, cost him the first seven weeks of the season, and he went back on the IL for a month in early July due to further inflammation in the digit. The Braves have given him some runway to get right, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if that indulgence ends when the playoffs start.

Left Field: Brandon Marsh and Bryan De La Cruz, Phillies

Phillies left fielders have netted -0.7 WAR, the majors’ second-lowest mark, and even if one waves off the comically terrible small-sample “contribution” of Otto Kemp (-0.8 WAR by going 1-for-23 without a walk and with -3 FRV in 63 innings), the reality is that Brandon Marsh’s performance is driving this, regardless of his platoon partner/fill-in. Though he made the NL All-Star team for the first time on the strength of a .301/.339/.490 (122 wRC+) showing with 15 homers in the first half, he’s hit .185/.244/.263 with three homers and a 33 wRC+ since the break, the majors’ lowest among qualifiers. Overall, his 0.4 WAR is the eighth-lowest mark of any batting title qualifier; Cleveland’s Jo Adell (also 0.4) and Boston’s Jarren Duran (0.5) are the only others among the bottom 10 who have played regularly for still-contending teams.

There’s no obvious reason for Marsh’s downturn. His bat-tracking data has been consistent from half to half, he’s reined in his tendency to chase, and his strikeout and walk rates have improved, but his average exit velocity has fallen from 89.8 to 88.5 mph, his barrel rate from 9.3% to 5.8%, and his hard-hit rate from 45.9% to 38%. Recently Mattingly suggested that pitchers adjusted to Marsh in the wake of his hot first half, and he hadn’t successfully countered:

“I just think they made an adjustment to him,” Mattingly said. “And we got to make it back. We haven’t been able to do that, I’ll say in general. You know, Marsh is sitting back there at some point, and they’re probably not doing a ton of homework on him. They’re attacking, whatever. He gets aggressive. He starts being aggressive early. He’s doing damage. He’s getting his hits. All of a sudden he’s hitting .330 and he’s on the All-Star team. And it’s like, ‘Maybe we ought to do a little more work on this guy?’ You see adjustments all the time.”

When Marsh went 2-for-4 with a three-run homer off the Brewers’ Dustin May on Tuesday, it was his first homer since August 1; he had collected just two extra-base hits (both doubles) over that 31-game span, and hadn’t had a multi-hit game since August 21.

Over the past month, Mattingly has used 29-year-old Bryan De La Cruz more often than Sosa as Marsh’s platoon partner; he’s hit .296/.350/.437 (113 wRC+) in 80 plate appearances including his time in right field, which has been shored up by Harper. De La Cruz owns just a 90 wRC+ in 1,952 plate appearances for his career, so I wouldn’t expect that performance to be sustained.

Center Field: Justin Crawford and Derek Hill, Phillies

As if the Phillies didn’t have other problems, they haven’t gotten much out of their center field platoon. Rookie Justin Crawford has hit just .263/.310/.355 (81 wRC+) with three homers and 16 stolen bases, and that’s while only taking 64 plate appearances (with a 74 wRC+) against lefties. His defense hasn’t been great either (-8 DRS, -2 FRV). Righty Derek Hill has hit for a 109 wRC+ since being acquired from the White Sox on June 11, and a 99 wRC+ (.241/.291/.442) overall, with a 111 wRC+ against lefties but a 79 wRC+ against righties — and even that is 26 points ahead of his career mark, accumulated over 467 plate appearances. He’s been unusually clutch, ranking fifth on the team in WPA (1.00) but 12th in plate appearances (126). Small-sample caveats apply both there and with regards to his strong defense in center (7 DRS and 2 FRV in 269 innings). If he could hit righties, he’d be worthy of more playing time, but that’s just not the case.

Injury-wise, Andy Pages lost a month of what has been a breakout season due to a fracture in his left hand. He was voted into the starting lineup of the NL All-Star team on the strength of a .270/.336/.471 (121 wRC+) first half, but his power tailed off from that point to August 21, when he was hit by a 100-mph heater from the Pirates’ Bubba Chandler; thanks to a higher BABIP, he hit .288/.361/.432 (122 wRC+) in the latter span, but his barrel and hard-hit rates dropped substantially. Hand injuries can cause lingering power outages; though Pages collected three hits in his second game back, his first six batted balls since returning have averaged just 82.7 mph in exit velo, with only one of them a hard-hit ball.

Right Field: Sal Frelick and Luis Lara, Brewers

After a breakout season in which he hit for a 114 wRC+ with 3.6 WAR in 2025, Sal Frelick’s performance has collapsed this season. The 26-year-old speedster has hit just .234/.299/.323 (74 wRC+) with four homers, seven steals, and -0.3 WAR. Just after landing on my Replacement Level Killers list for right fielders, he hit the IL due to a right (throwing) shoulder strain. He was subsequently diagnosed with a minor tear in his labrum and missed nearly six weeks, but he has opted to play through the injury for the remainder of the season instead of undergoing surgery. Unfortunately, all he’s done is act as a drag on the offense, hitting .224/.292/.293 (65 wRC+).

Luis Lara, a switch-hitting 21-year-old rookie, has hit just .250/.314/.332 (82 wRC+) since debuting on July 7, and hasn’t been much help platoon-wise (59 wRC+ against lefties, 93 wRC+ against righties). He’s made 33 starts in left, while the lefty-swinging Jake Bauers has made 28 — but just one since September 3, as he’s mainly been playing first base. Bauers is in the midst of an age-30 breakout season (.268/.393/.491, 146 wRC+). Playing him regularly in right while letting the righty-swinging Andrew Vaughn play first base full-time would seem to make sense, though the reality is that Bauers’ glove is a liability (-4 DRS and -4 FRV in 198 innings in right, -5 DRS and -5 FRV in 809 innings at first base) at either spot, and Vaughn is rough at first, too.

Designated Hitter: Who Knows Exactly, Padres

Diamondbacks designated hitters have netted -1.8 WAR this year, the majors’ second-lowest mark, with the Padres the third-worst at -1.7 WAR. The Snakes have spread things around more, with seven players making between 11 and 33 starts at DH, led by Adrian Del Castillo, who was optioned to Reno a couple of weeks ago. The Padres have started righty Miguel Andujar at DH 56 times, and lefty Gavin Sheets 30 times; both are currently on the injured list but working towards returning in time for the playoffs. Andujar, who has hit .259/.303/.423 (101 wRC+) overall, with a 105 wRC+ as a DH, has been on the IL since July 20 due to a right wrist fracture. Sheets, who has hit .211/.313/.388 (100 wRC+) overall, has just a 59 wRC+ as a DH; he’s been on the IL since August 30 due to a left foot sprain and plantar plate tear. Andujar was able to squeeze in a nine-game rehab stint at Triple-A El Paso and is taking live batting practice at Petco Park. Sheets, who’s also taking live BP, didn’t have the luxury of a rehab stint, and won’t be able to do anything besides DH and pinch-hit if he is activated.

In their absence, lately it’s been backup catcher Luis Campusano and reserve outfielder Austin Hays — both righties — in that role. Campusano has hit .268/.365/.440 (130 wRC+) overall, and with the Padres considering carrying three catchers, including 20-year-old rookie Ethan Salas, on the postseason roster, they could spare one for the DH pool. Hays has hit just .277/.296/.404 (91 wRC+) for the White Sox and Padres, but as an able-bodied defender, he may have the leg up on the roster spot.

Of course, when it comes to designated hitters on playoff-bound teams, the real question everybody wants to know is how healthy Shohei Ohtani is. The four-time MVP was activated on Tuesday after a 15-day IL stint for left knee, right biceps, and neck issues that not only ended his season as a pitcher but contributed to a slump. In 61 plate appearances from August 19 through September 7, he hit a homerless .122/.295/.184 (50 wRC+) with a 34.4% strikeout rate. In that span, he barreled just one ball (3.6%) and had just a 39.3% hard-hit rate. In two games since he’s returned, he’s gone 3-for-9 with three strikeouts and a 101.6-mph average exit velocity, with all six of his batted balls at 98 mph or higher; he just missed a home run in the first inning against Nick Pivetta on Thursday. That has to come as a relief for the Dodgers, though all eyes will be on him for any sign of further aches and pains.

Source

Back on June 23, I wrote an article called “What’s Going on With Wan Steven Kwan?” A week later, Kwan responded, “Nothing!” Well, he said it with his bat, anyway. On July 1, he went 1-for-2 with a triple, then 1-for-2 with two walks the next day, and then he hit another triple two days after that. Since July 1, Kwan is batting .350 with more walks than strikeouts for a 154 wRC+. My deep dive into Kwan’s troubles was an attempt to answer a question from a reader named Kevin, and now that Kwan is back on top again, Kevin has written back to ask what’s changed. I wanted to write about it, but this graph gave me pause.

Kwan got unbelievably hot at the beginning of July, and then he spent the next two months and change slowly cooling off. Every batter’s rolling wRC+ graph is full of ups and downs, but this one made me a bit wary. Zack Meisel had written a story about the turnaround for The Athletic back on September 1. In it, Kwan described poring over journal entries from previous slumps looking for the right attitude adjustment to get him back on track. And then over the next 12 games, Kwan ran a wRC+ of 80 and struck out twice as often as he walked. That’s the danger of writing about a hot streak. But over Kwan’s most recent 10 games, he’s back on top with a 178 wRC+, and honestly, I’m still curious. Has he fixed whatever was wrong? Is this just about BABIP? I really don’t know, Kevin. I’m writing this introduction before I dig into the numbers so that we can go on a journey of discovery together. Let’s away.

Back in June, what stood out to me was that Kwan had taken his already extreme offensive profile and pushed it to limits we’ve never seen before. As I wrote then:

Among qualified players, his current 97.8% contact rate on pitches in the strike zone is the highest ever recorded in the Statcast era. His squared-up rate is the fourth highest since Statcast started measuring it in 2023. And while his chase rate isn’t the lowest of his career, Statcast doesn’t give us percentiles for swing rates specifically on pitches in the zone. His is the fifth lowest recorded in the Statcast era, and it’s more than four percentage points below his previous low. He’s running the second-lowest bat speed ever recorded. He’s also running the second-lowest hard-hit rate ever recorded, above only 2018 Billy Hamilton.
…

Kwan has always built his game on patience and contact ability rather than aggression and power, but this year he’s out-Kwanned himself, and the results have been dreadful. He’s running a 67 wRC+, tied for fourth-worst mark among qualified batters.

I also noted that Kwan was running a .229 BABIP and underperforming his xwOBA by 31 points. He’d gotten pretty extreme, but it also seemed like there might just be some bad batted-ball luck going on. Here’s the same graph I showed you earlier, but it’s got BABIP in there too, and, well, those two lines sure do seem to move in tandem.

I know Kwan’s walk and strikeout rates have fluctuated, but it looks at a glance like batted-ball luck can explain a whole lot of both his struggles and his turnaround. Regardless, let’s start by updating all those numbers I mentioned back in June.

So most of these numbers have gotten a bit less extreme, which is exactly what you’d expect extreme numbers to do. The two changes that stick out the most are in the bat speed and line drive rate columns. We’ll get to line drive rate in a bit, but a change of 0.7 mph in bat speed is a significant shift, especially because it’s not bouncing back, like all the other numbers. Somehow, Kwan has dropped his bat speed even further. He had a fast-swing rate of 0.5% at the time, and he hasn’t been credited with a single one since. For the season, his bat speed is now at 62.4 mph, which is no longer the second-lowest mark ever recorded. It’s the lowest outright. It’s fallen against all three kinds of pitches.

And it’s dropped even further due to the proportions. Kwan started swinging at fewer fastballs and more slow stuff, and fastballs tend to induce slower swing speeds. Moreover, when he does swing at fastballs, his approach is very different. Over at Baseball Prospectus, Matthew Trueblood broke that down further, just a week after Meisel’s article. Matt, I should hasten to add, is one of the game’s great noticers. I don’t know how he does it, but he always seems to find crucial details that I never would’ve thought to look for in the first place, and this is a great example.

Matt noted that before July, Kwan was trying to do damage on fastballs by pulling them in the air, but instead he was rolling over them for groundouts over and over again. Before my article, Kwan had a 28% pull rate against fastballs. Since then, that number is 21%. His pull rate against breaking and offspeed pitches stayed nearly identical. So before, Kwan was trying to get out in front of the fastball; now he’s waiting back on it, and often deciding to let it go entirely. As you might guess knowing that his pull rate is down, Kwan is specifically laying off the inside fastball.

I’m sure you know about the contours of Kwan’s game, but it’s worth restating it at this point. He’s got elite plate discipline and contact skills, which allows him to run great walk and strikeout rates. He waits back and sprays singles from foul pole to foul pole. What slugging he’s able to muster comes in two forms. First, some of the line drives get sprayed right down the left field line for doubles. Second, Kwan will, just often enough, turn on the inside pitch, ripping it into the gap or down the line for a double or a homer. Well, since his turnaround, he’s not turning on those fastballs, so his pull rate has dropped, as has his launch angle. Before my article, he had a launch angle of 15 degrees and his batted balls averaged a distance of 165 feet. After it, those numbers were 9 degrees and 149 feet. That’s a huge difference, and it brings us back to the line drive rate.

Kwan didn’t drop his launch angle by putting the ball on the ground more. His groundball rate is virtually unchanged. He just somehow turned a ton of his fly balls into line drives. Kwan put up a preposterous 45% line drive rate in July. If you set a minimum of just 50 batted balls (and Kwan had 71), that’s the ninth-highest calendar-month line drive rate in the entire Statcast era. No wonder his BABIP shot through the roof!

Kwan’s whole game revolves around line drives, so I don’t think we can pretend that this hot streak is just noise. Line drive rate isn’t the stickiest stat in the world (and as proof, I can tell you that in that single-month leaderboard I mentioned earlier, only one person, Ben Gamel, appears in the top 30 more than once), but that doesn’t mean it carries no signal. This is what Kwan looks like when everything is going right. He’s walking, avoiding strikeouts, and racking up tons of line drives. That said, he’s still seeing his batted-ball luck bounce back in some interesting ways. For example, those two triples I mentioned in the first paragraph, the ones from back in July? Both were misplays that normally would’ve gone down as singles or doubles.

During the rough stretch, Kwan’s batted-ball makeup got weird in a different way. It wasn’t just that he made more contact, but also that more of his contact turned into balls in play. In 2025, he fouled off the ball on 42% of his swings. Since June 23, he’s again at 42%. But while he was struggling so mightily, his foul rate dropped to 36%. That’s not normally how things go; players who make tons of contact tend to foul the ball of a lot, so seeing Kwan’s foul rate drop while his contact rate increased is a little odd. I know that because a couple years ago, I did a whole investigation into foul balls, and I found that it’s best to think about them as almost-whiffs. In the same way that when you chase a terrible pitch, you’d rather miss it entirely, because one strike is not as bad as a weakly hit ball that turns into an out, you’d also rather have your bad contact go foul. It’s so weakly hit that it’d be an automatic out if it were fair.

Maybe I’m off base here – maybe the fouls were just another example of Kwan’s ability to make even more contact – but this seems like the kind of randomness that could contribute to some ugly batted-ball luck. Remember, his contact rate went up at this point, so those former fouls weren’t turning into whiffs; they were turning into balls in play, and that works out to nearly one per game. Adding one weakly hit ball per game is enough to sink anybody’s batting line.

All of this is to say that, as usual, I think there’s a mix of noise and signal in these hot and cold streaks. Kwan has definitely earned a lot of that higher BABIP. He’s changed both his attitude and approach, and he’s hitting line drives like crazy. You can’t do that if you’re not locked in. But he can’t control how many of them fall in for hits. And my diagnosis from June, that Kwan had out-Kwanned himself by slowing his bat speed even further than usual wasn’t quite right, because Kwan discovered another, even lower gear en route to righting himself. The good news is that with the playoffs starting on Tuesday, he’s exactly where he wants to be.

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Welcome to the last 2026 edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. The regular season is headed to a conclusion, with two division titles and four playoff spots still up for grabs. For me, late September is a great time to catch my breath and watch a little meaningless baseball as a palette cleanser before flipping the switch to the maximum-intensity world of October. So while there are some consequential games this week, this column isn’t about those. It’s about some goofy things I saw in low-stakes matchups, a player I enjoyed watching all season, and some voices that have enriched my baseball-viewing experience over the years. With my customary acknowledgment of Zach Lowe of The Ringer, who popularized the format this column shamelessly copies, let’s get started.

1. Professional Courtesy
Baseball players on opposite teams are competitors, but they’re also workers in the same field. Yes, you’d like to beat the other team, but your counterpart on their squad is one of the people who can most relate to your daily struggles. You might compete against them 10 times a year; the other 355 days, your lives are far more alike than different. Catchers have a particular bond; let people throw projectiles right at you all day, and you’ll naturally gain a lot of respect for other people willing to do the same thing.

When the Brewers and Phillies squared off this week, the stakes were moderate. The Brewers hadn’t clinched the top overall seed yet, though they were headed there. (They did last night, when the Dodgers lost to the Padres.) The Phillies haven’t yet clinched a playoff spot, though again, the writing is on the wall. For the most part, it was a playoff tuneup for both sides. In the top of the ninth on Tuesday, with the Phillies up three and cruising home, William Contreras decided that he might as well burn a challenge:

Obviously, he wasn’t going to win that one. But Jhoan Duran had been moving the ball all around the zone, including hitting the outside edge for a borderline strike call earlier in the at-bat, and you don’t get to take the challenges home. The only downside was that Contreras had to stand out there for a few seconds looking foolish, then have his error displayed on the Jumbotron for the whole crowd to laugh at. But fellow tools-of-ignorance wearer J.T. Realmuto didn’t make Contreras wait for the review:

The field microphone didn’t pick that up, but it didn’t have to. “Hey, that was a strike, man.” “Oh, for sure? OK. Thanks.” If it wasn’t those exact words, it was certainly something in that neighborhood. That’s just polite, right there. Catching is hard work! No one wants to stand out there looking like a rube a second longer than they have to when the outcome is already determined, and Realmuto wasn’t going to let Contreras experience that just because he plays for another team.

That led to an amusing challenge resolution. Contreras was completely off the field before the call got confirmed:

The outcome of the game wasn’t remotely affected. This play didn’t matter even a little bit for either club in the long run. If these teams meet in the playoffs, there’ll be no love lost; Contreras isn’t going to call easier pitches for Realmuto to hit when the Phillies’ backstop is in the box because of his kind gesture. But that’s what was so great about it. With nothing to gain other than helping a fellow ballplayer out, Realmuto was happy to oblige.

2. Yordan The Unsolvable
The most interesting awards race in baseball this year? It’s NL Rookie of the Year, as I wrote about yesterday. But the most delightful award-worthy performance of the year? For me, it’s Yordan Alvarez’s flat-out dominance. It’s not the best hitting season we’ve seen in recent memory, nor is it better than Aaron Judge’s MVP-winning performance from last year. But man, is it fun to watch Alvarez hit.

Big hulking sluggers are supposed to have one clear weakness: whiffs. You’ve watched Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, and their ilk swing the bat. They’re up there looking to launch, and they take huge rips in pursuit of that goal. You can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs, and so on. But despite looking the part at 6-foot-3 and 237 pounds, Alvarez doesn’t work like that.

Alvarez boasts one of the fastest bats in the majors. But he gets to that bat speed without swinging wildly. His hands are simply so quick and powerful that he can take some of the most powerful swings in baseball while retaining excellent bat control. His 7.4% swinging strike rate is one of the lowest in the majors. To find someone who comes up empty less frequently, you’ll have to go way down the home run leaderboard, from Alvarez at 41 to Alex Bregman, whose 26 homers place him 31st in the majors. Alvarez is second in baseball in isolated power; Mookie Betts, who’s down in 42nd, is the first hitter on that leaderboard with a lower swinging strike rate.

That kind of power/contact hybrid isn’t completely unprecedented – Juan Soto, who missed too much time to qualify for the leaderboards this year, similarly blends power and precision. But Soto and Alvarez aren’t quite doing the same thing out there. Soto looks like he’s waiting for a pitch he can deposit in the seats. Alvarez looks like he’s about to pounce – he swings more, takes fewer called strikes, and generally behaves like you’re going to have to try pretty hard to walk him. He’s not reckless by any means – he chases less than league average – but it’s a completely different feel.

How are you supposed to get Alvarez out? You can’t just cheese him with a lefty specialist; he has neutral platoon splits across his lengthy career, with a 160 wRC+ against lefties and 169 against righties. For comparison, Soto’s marks are 131 and 169, respectively. You also can’t use high-velocity fastballs to beat him; he’s one of the best in the majors against them. Wanna spam him with breaking balls? He was one of the best hitters in baseball against sliders and curveballs this year, and he’s an aggregate 70 runs above average against them in his career. Changeups and splitters? He tattoos both of them, too; since his debut, he’s the second-best lefty hitter in the majors against changeups (behind Brendan Donovan) and the best against splitters.

That’s all the pitch types. There’s no real way to pitch to Alvarez, and so teams are increasingly choosing not to. He’s been intentionally walked 33 times this year, more than double Shohei Ohtani’s 16 in second place. The longer Alvarez keeps hitting like this, the more teams choose discretion over bravery; his rate of intentional walks has nearly doubled since the All-Star break. Those walks, as well as the general punchlessness of the Houston offense, have held him back from even more outrageous counting stats; even as a top-of-the-lineup hitter on a possible playoff team, he’s 115th in runners aboard per plate appearance this year. His 102 RBI are silly given that backdrop; he’s 10 RBI behind the major league leader, despite having 25% fewer runners to drive home.

From a WAR perspective, this will be one of the weakest MVP seasons in recent memory. But I don’t really care about that. WAR isn’t great at accounting for the value of elite hitters with no defensive position. Alvarez’s batting line, as well as the behavior of opposing managers, makes it clear that he’s the best hitter in the game this year. It’s been a treat watching opposing clubs do the strategy equivalent of a shrug emoji all season long.

3. Bruiseless HBPs
Taking one for the team by standing in there and letting yourself get hit by a pitch is a venerated skill in baseball. After any given hit-by-pitch, most of the dugout will be on the top rail yelling encouragement to the guy who got drilled. It’s part of the job, and players appreciate their teammates doing the dirty work that’s necessary to win. Drew Gilbert is the exact kind of player who revels in this kind of work: scrappy, undersized, maximum effort at all times. But he didn’t need maximum effort or grittiness to accept this particular gift:

Seth Halvorsen was out there on mopup duty, a low-leverage spot in a low-leverage game. He’s been a reliever of last resort since the Dodgers acquired him in July, and he’s almost certainly not going to be on the postseason roster; in fact, he’s been optioned to Triple-A since this game, and the Triple-A season is over. In other words, his main job was to not get hurt. And when he felt his cleat stick mid-delivery, he shut down his delivery rather than risk anything untoward happening. He flipped the ball towards home plate almost as an afterthought: “See? I’m pitching!”

You’re supposed to make a genuine effort to get out of the way of a pitch – umpires are allowed to wave off the HBP if you don’t. Gilbert didn’t move a muscle as the pitch bounced in:

From this perspective, it’s not entirely clear whether he knew what was happening. His head turn to the umpire looks almost quizzical, as if he’s asking what the rule is. But a side angle is more revealing. This little hip lean doesn’t happen on accident:

You know someone threw a strange pitch when both sets of announcers compare it to a shot put. Joe Davis let out a shocked, involuntary “Oh!” when he saw it. “Take that, Gilbert,” Mike Krukow deadpanned. “They will not have to ice that one.” And as you’d expect, the Giants dugout didn’t go nuts celebrating Gilbert’s hustle. They barely reacted – a six-run game and a ridiculous HBP will do that.

The play didn’t end up mattering at all, naturally. Halvorsen struck out the next two batters to end the game. But it’s going to stick with me for a while, because it’s the silliest HBP I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t get enough of the strike zone dot that popped up halfway through the pitch in the first GIF, or this still image that looks like three people playing baseball and a pitcher so annoyed with them that he can’t even look them in the eye:

4. Moral Victories
The Mets dugout exploded at the end of the sixth inning on Tuesday night:

That celebration feels too big for a 5-3 scoreline for a team 14 games under .500 and that has long been eliminated from the playoff race. But the team wasn’t celebrating its own success – it was celebrating Sean Manaea’s win over his own personal bogeyman, the sixth inning.

Manaea has had a forgettable year: 18 starts, 14 relief appearances, 1.0 WAR on the back of a 4.67 ERA and peripherals to match. But his middling season hides a ridiculously misshapen ride. In the first five innings of his starts this year, he was quite good. His ERA by inning: 4.00, 3.50, 2.00, 5.29, 2.70. That works out to a 3.49 ERA over 87 2/3 innings of work. But the sixth was an absolute disaster. Manaea pitched into the sixth 15 times this year. He allowed 17 earned runs, and since he failed to make it out of several of those sixths, that works out to a 13.11 ERA. And that’s including the scoreless sixth he notched on Tuesday.

While pitchers do get worse the more times they go through the lineup and the more fatigued they get, Manaea’s good-to-terrible transition in the sixth can’t possibly be a reflection of true talent. He’s just been absolutely snakebitten in the inning this year. I’m absolutely willing to believe that it got in his head, too, because it all unraveled so quickly.

It must have seemed like a bad dream. He got creamed for three in the sixth on August 15, then four in the sixth on August 21. After a rough start (six earned) where he only allowed a single sixth-inning run before departing, it was more of the same: three runs in the sixth on September 1, and then four on September 8. In his next start, on September 15 against the Orioles, he began the sixth with an out, finally ready to exorcise his demons – but Pete Alonso was due up next, and manager Andy Green went to a righty for the platoon matchup.

That’s how you end up doing the whole-dugout-high-five routine on a sparsely attended Tuesday night road game. The Mets didn’t care about the result of this game at all. The Rangers needed it badly. But Manaea wanted a clean sixth inning more than anyone else on either team wanted anything at all, and it showed. I love the silly things that keep players going as they grind through a long, and often unrewarding, regular season. Manaea’s pure joy at getting a monkey off his back is a wonderful example.

5. Last Call for Legends
At the end of this year, several venerable and beloved announcers are stepping down from their roles. Howie Rose of the Mets, Rick Rizzs of the Mariners, and Tommy Hutton of the Marlins are each ending long and decorated careers. I know that all three will be missed by the fans who heard their voices day in and day out over the years. But as a San Francisco resident, I don’t feel I can end the season without celebrating Mike Krukow’s tremendous announcing career.

Krukow and Duane Kuiper have spent the last 36 years as the primary broadcast pairing for the Giants, who maintain a complicated rotation of radio and TV that also includes Dave Flemming, Jon Miller, Hunter Pence, and Javier López. I’m not a Giants fan, and when I moved to the city in 2019, I had no particular affinity for Kruk and Kuip. But in the seven years I’ve lived here, Krukow’s voice has become part of the heartbeat of the city to me.

I hear it blaring out of bars as I walk by in the evening, or in the background of my own apartment when I’m cooking. I hear it on the TV at my grocery store, sneaking out the window of the house where our dog boarder lives. The Giants are an institution here, particularly in the gap between the Warriors finishing their season and the 49ers starting theirs, and Kruk and Kuip are the foremost proponents and advocates for that institution.

Sometimes, it can feel like you’re listening to a new language. “Grab some pine, meat” barely registered as English the first time I heard it. Now I know that it’s a strikeout celebration, a light-hearted mockery of the opposing hitter that’s used to celebrate the Giants pitcher who just notched a strikeout. The list of Kruk-and-Kuip-isms is so long that The Athletic compiled 83 of them back in 2023, and I can think of plenty more that didn’t make the list.

That’s part of the charm of the broadcast. It’s two old friends talking baseball, with all the inside jokes and winking references that entails. Listen to it long enough, and you start to internalize that as your own language. I know that I’ve submitted more than one turn of phrase that my editors sent back to me confusedly, only for me to realize that it’s not so much a baseball phrase as something I heard Krukow say on TV once.

I don’t have the same connection to Krukow that longtime Giants fans do. I didn’t live through the Even Year Magic years here, or hear him explain Barry Bonds’ greatness to fans. But even in a fraction of the time, he left a mark on me as a baseball viewer. I associate Krukow with measured announcing, goofy turns of phrase, and a willingness to be tough on the home team when it deserves it. I listen to a ton of baseball on TV, and I think that Krukow is one of the best around – that Kruk and Kuip as a pairing is one of the best around, really. I’m going to miss hearing him next year.

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