That would have been June 23rd, against the Cardinals. Sandberg drove in a run in the first inning, but by the second it sure did not look like it was Chicago’s day. The Cardinals got off to a 7-1 lead. Sandberg drove in a run in the 5th and 2 in the 6th, making it a one run game.

Down by one in the bottom 9th, Ryno led the inning off with a homerun off Bruce Sutter, sending the game to extra innings. The Cardinals scored 2 in the top of the tenth, and in the bottom of the inning Sandberg faced Sutter again, with a runner on and 2 out. He homered again, his 7th RBI and 5th hit of the day. The Cubs won the game in the bottom of the 11th.

The problem with identifying Pete Crow-Armstrong’s signature moment is there are too many candidates. Could it be one of his 5-star catches, the ones where he is the only player to make a catch at a given difficulty level? Maybe a baserunning play, like the extra-inning game against the Blue Jays where he stole third and scored on an error to walk off the game? But it’s probably going to have something to do with homers, and right now he has 37 of them. In the last few days he has a 3-homer game which he followed up with 2 more on Sunday Night Baseball.

I’d probably pick a game from two weeks ago, the one where he led off against the White Sox with a homer and then hit another in the 10th to walk it off.

For the first half of the season, the MVP was obviously going to Ohtani yet again. He was having another big offensive season and also pitching well enough that some wondered if he could bring home a Cy Young as well. PCA has been on the rise since then while Ohtani has stopped pitching. He hasn’t pitched since July 3rd. Right now I think most people see PCA as the front-runner but there are still a few Ohtani holdouts. If this season keeps going like it has recently, by the end of the year Pete will have converted the most devout Ohtanites.

Right now Pete has 8.5 BBref WAR and 9.3 Fangraphs WAR. That gives him a very good chance at a 10 WAR season, which puts him in extremely rare company among center fielders. There have only been 8 center fielders in the history of the game to have a 10 WAR season. Which WAR? I looked at Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference, and my own Baseball Projection. If someone hits 10 WAR on any site, he counts.

The elite 8 are: Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Rickey Henderson, Mike Trout, and Aaron Judge. Not a fluke player among them, just all-time greats.

A year ago I did not see PCA playing at the level of peak Willie Mays. His defense was undeniable, he runs well and has some power. But he didn’t get on base. The comp I had in mind was Devon White. He was a very good player, a contributor to a championship team, but not any kind of all-time great.

Only time will tell if PCA has truly joined the elite, or if 20 years ago he’ll stick out like a crazy fluke. Like Brady Anderson among the 50-homer hitters or Cal Raleigh among the greatest catcher seasons of all time.

Looking at the list of 10-WAR players under any of the 3 sources, most of the players we find are all-time greats. Most Hall of Fame level players never have a 10-WAR season. There are 3 who stick out:

Al Rosen, 1953 (35.5 Career by Baseballprojection.com)

Rosen had the MVP season, but also 5 outstanding seasons in a row. He got off to a late start, playing only 35 games before he was 26, and finished early due to injuries.

Norm Cash, 1961 (50.5 career)

Cash had a long career as a very good player. He had one season for the ages, 1961. While Mickey and Roger chased the homer record, Cash led the league in OBP (.487) while winning the batting title and hitting 41 homers of his own.

Rico Petrocelli, 1969 (28.7 career)

Rico was a good player who had a career season on every front. He had his best defensive season. He had 98 walks and a batting average just short of .300, for a .403 OBP. His career mark was .332, and his second-best season was .354. And most of all, he hit 40 homers. Not just cheap shots over the monster, 18 of his homers came on the road.

Kris Bubic, one year, 20 million.

The projections really like him, suggesting a contract of 3 years and 86 million. He does all the Fielding Independent Pitching things, striking out a lot of hitters while limiting the walks and strikeouts. I went with a manual edit though because of availability. Bubic went to the Dodgers at the trade deadline but has not yet thrown a pitch for them. His career high innings is only 130.

He’s a similar case to Matt Boyd a few years ago: good pitcher but not very reliable. His fastball is not particularly fast by MLB standards at 92. He has a very good changeup, as well as 2 slider varieties including a sweeper.

Trevor Rogers, 3 years, 64 million

I was a little surprised he did not go at the trade deadline but also has not signed an extension. He came over from the Marlins in 2024 and was ineffective in 4 starts at the end of that season. Then he came back and surprised everyone with a 1.81 ERA over 18 starts. There were some good signs, only 6 homers allowed, good strikeout to walk ratio. There was also a .228 BABIP, which was just not sustainable. His luck ran out and he’s allowing a near league average BABIP this season.

So far he’s thrown 137 innings, and that is his new career high. He has a good fastball, averaging 94 MPH and sometimes hitting the upper 90s. Also throws a change, sweeper, sinker, and cutter. With the Orioles his sweeper has been his most effective pitch.

Matt Boyd, 2 years, 44 million

Boyd was in Bubic’s situation a few years back. He had gone 5 years without being healthy enough to even throw 100 innings, but in 2025 he made 31 starts and pitched 179 innings. He’ been effective in 2026 but there are signs of decline. Strikeouts are down, walks and homers are up. Throws a standard 4 pitch mix. His fastball has decent speed (92.8 MPH) but gets hit a lot harder than his breaking and offspeed pitches.

David Peterson, 2 years, 36 million

Was getting roughed up while pitching for the Mets but turned things around after he went to the Cubs. Standard 4 pitch mix and an average (92 MPH) fastball. Through 2024 his career high for innings was 121, but he threw 168 last year and will probably end up around 150 this year. There is nothing to wow you, but looks like a solid back of the rotation option.

Shota Imanaga, 2 years, 35 million

He will give you innings, at least by today’s standards. Over 140 each of his 3 seasons with a month to add to that this year. Three Cubs in a row here. Imanaga has outstanding strikeout to walk ratios. His weakness is the gopherball, he has already allowed 30 this year and 88 over the last 3 seasons. Not a hard thrower (91.6). His best pitch is his splitter. He can put batters away with that pitch when ahead in the count. He gets in trouble when he falls behind and is forced to throw the gopherball.

Pete Alonso was a well-liked player, maybe considered to be the face of the franchise. He is a tremendous power hitter. He also hits for a low average. He doesn’t have a lot of speed or defensive value. On the plus side, he is among the most durable players in the game, he hardly misses any games. The only person on this planet with the standing to criticize his availability is a certain Hall of Fame shortstop who happens to be part of the Orioles’ ownership group.

He has been, and remains, a valuable player. The difficult question the Mets had to answer was just how valuable? Where do you draw the line? They drew their line somewhere below 150 million over 5 years.

Right now that decision is not looking so good. Pete has played in every game, leads the league in RBI, and has 4.0 Wins above Replacement with a month to go. If he plays like this for the next 5 years it will be one of the better free agent signings on record. Playing well in year one however is a long way from maintaining your value over 5 years. The Mets had to look at the history of players who were comparable to him, and project how he would age.

Baseball Reference lists the top 10 most comparable players on Alonso’s page. One is Matt Olson. Since he and Pete were born in the same year we can leave him off. The other 9 are retired.

The list includes Mark McGwire. For ages 31-35 (the years Pete is under contract with the Orioles) McGwire was incredible. It includes his record-breaking season, but all the years around it are just jaw-dropping. McGwire’s slugging percentage from 1995 to 1999 was .702. Like Alonso, McGwire was naturally a big, strong guy. He then went beyond his natural limits as an admitted steroid user. I doubt Alonso will go down that path, MLB now has testing and the penalties in terms of games played are severe. We should be spared the terror of a steroid-using polar bear unleashed upon the American League.

With McGwire as the best case, the worst-case scenario is one that the Orioles are extremely familiar with, Chris Davis. After signing his contract extension, Davis was not merely bad, or not worth the money. He was so far below replacement level that he couldn’t even see it. You know what else he couldn’t see? The baseball, as he repeatedly swung at and missed it.

Here are the 9 comparables, and Alonso, up to age 30.

Not a bad match. Exactly equal on slugging percentage and 1 off on career games.

Here’s year age 31:

Alonso is off to a great start, beating everyone on the list except McGwire. Age 32:

Age 33:

Age 34:

By this time, Davis had no hope of coming back, it just came down to how much longer the Orioles would allow him to step on the field. This was the end for him. Sexson was out of baseball, and Fielder would soon be as well. Age 35:

Three players out of baseball, Mornaeu playing out the string. Ryan Howard was only allowed to keep playing because of his contract. That’s more than half of the players with virtually zero value. Tino Martinez was decent, but a below average first baseman. Kingman had a good season at 35 but it was his only good one over his last 7 seasons. McGriff was still good, and McGwire was great. Only 2 of the 9 players would have provided fair value if given a big money, 5-year contract after their age 30 season.

If Kingman had been a free agent after his age 30 season and had done it in the modern game, what kind of deal would he have gotten? He probably would have gotten a big deal like Alonso. In 1979 Kingman hit .288 and led the league with 48 homers. Such a contract, if offered, would have been a disaster.

One player I was surprised not to see here is another Oriole, Glen Davis. He came to the team in one of the worst trades ever as it cost them Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, and Pete Harnisch. Davis probably doesn’t match up well with Alonso because he played in a different run scoring environment and had his power numbers limited by the Astros. Put them in the same circumstances and Davis would match up well to Alonso. Before he came to Baltimore Davis had a 132 career OPS+, compared to 136 for Alonso.

Since his 2026 season is mostly in the books and we know he didn’t decline, Alonso is looking like a good signing not just for this year but going forward. Would you give him 120 million over the next 4 years, the amount the Orioles have yet to pay? I think you would. But given the information the Mets had going into this year, it was a reasonable decision to let him walk.

At some point that summer, according to Wikipedia, I see that the stat was invented by John Lowe, a sportswriter with the Inquirer, in 1985. I probably read the first article on it because I read everything in the sports section that summer but have no memory of it.

Every now and then I see people proclaiming that the quality start is a worthless stat because at the minimum - 6 innings pitched and 3 earned runs - you have a 4.50 ERA. Outside of the 1930s or 1990s, a 4.50 ERA is not particularly good. In 2026 there are 55 qualifiers for the ERA title, if you had a 4.50 ERA you would rank 50th.

What this kind of criticism misses is that 6 and 3 is an absolute minimum. There is nobody in history that could consistently throw quality starts at the exact minimum and end up with a 4.50 ERA. Sometimes they throw a complete game shutout. That is also a quality start, and the ERA for doing that is a bit less than 4.50.

Pooling all the quality starts together, the sum ERA is generally somewhere between 1.60 and 2.00. For 2025, it was 1.73. In other words, a pitcher who throws a quality start every time out is about as good as Jacob deGrom was at his Cy Young best.

I don’t know if John Lowe had the data to show this or if he went on a gut feeling, but in 1985 almost exactly half of all starts (51%) met the criteria for quality start. That seems like a logical place to set your bar. If he had been around in the Deadball era he might have set the numbers at 7 innings and 3 runs. In the 1930s maybe 6 innings and 4 runs is enough to give your team a chance, when your whole lineup is batting .300 and Lou Gehrig and Hack Wilson are threatening to drive in 200 runs.

Anyway, here is the trendline from 1908 to 2025, from the Retrosheet data.

In 1908, scoring runs was rare and 68 percent of starts met the quality start criteria. The other categories here are high runs - pitcher goes at least 6 innings but allows 4 or more runs. ShortIP are games with 3 or fewer earned runs but the pitcher did not go 6 innings. In recent years, this includes Openers. The “both” line is for a pitcher who gave up too many runs and also did not make it to six innings.

In 1930 the number of high run starts peaked at 29 percent. This was the work of inning eating. You were getting hammered, but that was just 1930 baseball. So you stayed in there and took it, and hoped your team would hammer the other guy harder.

With a few exceptions, the quality start percentage was around 50 percent from 1920 up until 2015. Since then pitchers have been pulled from games earlier, and as mentioned, some games are started by openers who only expect to go for 1 or 2 innings. We are down to 35 percent quality starts in 2025.

The games with high runs have mostly disappeared. While a little over 10 percent of starts fit this category even in pitchers’ years of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, we are down to less than 5 percent since 2020. It’s not that pitchers aren’t giving up 4+ earned runs anymore, just that when they do, they are almost always pulled from the game before the 6th inning.

Interestingly, the short inning group was over 10 percent even in the Deadball era. This is probably due to not having the designated hitter. If you are trailing 3-1 in the 5th inning the manager might feel the need to pinch hit for you. This trend also happened in the 1960s, reaching 20 percent of starts in 1966.

As late as 2015, it was still 19 percent. A manager was unlikely to pull a pitcher before 6 innings if he was pitching well. That is about when baseball started paying attention to things like “times through the order penalty”. In 2018 31 percent of starts were pulled early without giving up too many runs, and in 2020 it was 45 percent. Part of that is the short 2020 season was an outlier, teams had expanded rosters for significant parts of the season. In 2025 it was down a bit at 39 percent. That is still much higher than it had been any point before 2020.

Since only 35 percent of starts are meeting the QS definition today, it might be time to reconsider. A possibility would be something like Complete Innings - ER >= 3. In other words, any of these could qualify:

3 innings, zero ER

4 innings, 1 ER

5 innings, 2 ER

6 innings, 3 ER

7 innings, 4 ER

I don’t think we need to go further, not much chance of seeing more innings than that unless a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter and has an unusually low pitch count. For most of baseball history I think the stat does what it was designed to do: Games where the pitcher gave his team a reasonable chance to win the game.

We most likely won’t even see any of them top Derek Jeter’s extension from 26 years ago, which I think was around 189 million - never mind what A-Rod got around that time.

So what happened to this free agent class? To start, who were the best rookies in 2021? These are the players who should be finishing up 6 years of service time.

Randy Arozarena won the AL award. He is still a good player, and will get a decent contract. He’s just not a great one, and at 32 we won’t be super young for a free agent. He’s not going to break the bank.

Luis Garcia finished second. Not the Luis Garcia who was with the Nationals, traded to the Yankees at the deadline, and will also be a free agent. No, this Luis was a pitcher for the Astros. When they went to the 2021-22 World Series they seemed unstoppable. They lose Verlander, Greinke, Cole, and Morton to injury or free agency and they just seemed to be able to produce a good young pitcher on command. Someone who threw upper 90s, had a great K-W ratio, spun a wicked breaking ball, and flirt with a no-hitter now and then. Garcia was one of those guys. He had a 3.48 ERA in 2021 and won 15 games in 2022. In 2023 he got hurt early in the year, missed all of 2024, pitched 2 games in 2025, and has not pitched at all this year. It seems the well has run dry for the Astros being able to produce an instant pitcher.

Number 3 was Wander Franco. He is the guy who could have set the next contract standard, a shortstop who could do everything. He would not be a free agent this year because he had signed a long-term extension. He has not played since 2023 because he is a horrible, criminal human being.

Number 4 was Adolis Garcia. He was an impact player for the Rangers’ 2023 world series run, but at this point is an outfielder who can’t get on base and is going to be lucky to get any contract next year.

Number 5 was Emmanuel Clase. Another great talent but flawed human being. He probably not going to pitch again because he broke the same rule Pete Rose and Joe Jackson did.

Number 6 is Ryan Mountcastle. He was OK for a few years, a first baseman with some power but a poor OBP. He played poorly in 2025. In 2026 he only played 8 games and has been hurt most of the year. I cannot understand why the Orioles even bothered to bring him back this offseason after signing Pete Alonso. Don’t they understand that Polar Bears don’t take days off? They had two power hitting catchers to split C and DH, plus a whole bunch of outfielders. I don’t see how Mountcastle was ever supposed to get playing time even if healthy. They have a team option for 7.5 million next year. I can’t see them picking it up, but they can surprise me. If not, Mountcastle will be lucky to get any contract.

Number 7 is Shane McClanahan, who is having a very good season. He will be just short of 6 years’ service time though, so will not be a free agent. Number 8 is Alec Manoah. What a sad career progression. In the Cy Young mix as a sophomore, he then lost several years to injury. He tried a comeback with the Angels this season but had more walks and runs allowed than innings. His AAA stats look even worse. His ERA is 16.14. In 30 innings he has allowed 45 hits, 42 walks, and 55 runs.

In the NL the winner was Jonathan India. He was good that year, a second baseman who could draw walks and hit 20 homers. He regressed after that year, and is now a questionable bat who doesn’t play good enough defense to stick in the middle infield. He’ll be a free agent, but might end up with a minor league contract.

In second place was Trevor Rogers with the Marlins. He is now with the Orioles, a good pitcher, and I’ll right him up when I get to the pitching section.

Dylan Carlson was 3rd. He looked like a solid all-around outfielder. Since then he has regressed and has trouble sticking on a roster.

As a 29-year-old rookie Patrick Wisdom hit 28 homers in just 106 games. He struck out around 40 percent of the time. He’s still playing, but his lack of contact ability makes him a marginal player.

Ian Anderson had a good rookie year for the Braves all the way to the World Series. He pitched 5 no-hit innings in his WS start. He wasn’t all that good in 2022, got hurt, tried to come back with the Angels last year, and now looks to be out of baseball. But he’ll always have that world series ring.

Frank Schwindel was another Cub minor league slugger made good. Like Wisdom, he was a 29-year-old rookie. He had a slugging percentage over .600 that year. He didn’t hit the next year and moved on to Japan, then independent leagues.

Tyler Stepenson is on my list. He’s a solid, not great, catcher.

David Bednar finished 8th. His career has been solid, I will write him up when I get to the relievers.

Vladimir Gutierrez pitched well for the 2021 Reds, not so much after that. He’s currently in the Mexican league.

So far the best cases for a big 2026-27 payday are players who failed for off-the-field reasons, Franco and Clase.

There are two other position players who will not be free agents because they extended early, but would have hit 6 years of service at the end of this season. Both are Blue Jays.

Andres Gimenez is not much of a hitter but a highlight reel defender. After Bo Bichette left (really, it started last year when Bo got hurt) he has switched from second to the tougher position of shortstop. He was a 3-time gold glover at second base. I don’t know if he’ll win a gold glove, after all he’s now competing with Bobby Witt Jr. His shortstop defense has been outstanding at +15 fielding run value by statcast.

He has 3 guaranteed years left on his deal at about 70 million. How much is a weak bat, good glove shortstop worth? I have Gimenez at 3/64. The contract is a bit of an overpay, but at least it is close.

The second is Alejandro Kirk. The doubters on Kirk said he was too short, fat, and slow to be a major league player. His record shows that he is an above average hitter and a very good defensive catcher. While he may look like an Ewok, be aware that short, stubby arms can generate tremendous power.

I made a few adjustments to the WAR projection that the system spits out for Kirk, giving him -5 baserunning runs instead of -1, and changing his position adjustment to +6 instead of the full catcher bonus because he does spend some time at DH. Even so, his 4-year WAR projection is 2.8, 2.3, 2.1, and 1.8. That suggest a contract valuation of 118 million over the next 4 seasons. The Blue Jays have Kirk under contract for only 50 million, making him one of the best bargains in the game.

So there you have it. The missing top free agent position players in this class are Wander Franco (banned) and Alejandro Kirk (extended).

Jeffers moved quickly through the minors after being drafted in 2018, he debuted in the big leagues in 2020. It took him a little while to become a good hitter, but he is one now. In 2023 he had an .858 OPS, however there were still some signs that it might not be sustainable. He struck out 93 times in 286 at bats and relied on an absurdly high BABIP to get his numbers.

This year he has almost as many walks as strikeouts, giving him a .390 OBP and is a power threat. The downside on him is that he has never had a full-time catcher workload. The most games he has caught in one year is 88. He’s not a bad player to have, but if you sign him you better plan on having someone else who can catch at least half the games. Jeffers does hit well enough to DH some when he’s not catching, especially against a lefty starter.

On defense he has been about average on blocking and framing, and well below average on throwing out runners. His throwing is not trending in the right direction either. From 2023-24 he threw out about 17 percent of runners, this year he is down to 14.6 percent.

Jeffers fits best on a team that has another catcher and is looking for someone to catch part time and fill some DH at bats as well.

Carson Kelly, 2 years, 39 million

Kelly was a highly regarded defensive catcher when he first came up with the Cardinals. He was a big part of the return for Paul Goldschmidt in 2019, and at first he looked like he was also going to be a useful hitter in Arizona.

He slumped badly in 2022 and 2023, briefly falling into the replacement level pool when the Diamondbacks released him in mid-season. He went to the Tigers and Rangers before rebuilding his value for the Cubs over the last 2 years.

He’ll be 32 next year. Not a great hitter but gives you enough power and walks to be around league average. On defense he has been a good blocker and framer. His throwing has been above average over his career. Last season he threw out a career best 34 percent. He is still slightly above average this season. He will likely pass 100 games caught before the year is done, the 4th time he will have done that. His career high is only 105 though, so you’re definitely not getting prime J.T, Realmuto here.

He’s a good all-around player and can be your #1 catcher, but plan on having someone to split the job with.

Tyler Stephenson, 2 years, 33 million

Solid league average hitter. Has some power but very much a free swinger. On defense his framing is not very good. Last I had updated the 2026 numbers he was only ahead of Logan O’Hoppe. Since Logan is now in the minors Stephenson might be the worst. His blocking is around average; throwing is a little below average (19 percent).

Gary Sanchez, 1 year, 7 million

Once looked at as a potential superstar, the Kraken has settled into being a useful backup catcher. Most teams look for defensive specialists in that role. Sanchez gives you below average defense but can hit the ball a long way. In his second stint with the Brewers he has started drawing walks this year. He even pitched the final inning of a 22-0 win over the Mariners. The Brewers got him for only 1.5 million this year, but he made 8 million the previous year for the Orioles. Since he’s having a good year, I think his next contract will be closer to the 8 million figure.

Seiya Suzuki, 3 years, 76 million

He’ll be 32 next year. He’s the best hitter in the class with power, walks, and a decent batting average. Over the previous 2 seasons he played more at DH, but this year he is mostly playing right and doing a fine job defensively. Maybe he’s kicked it into a higher gear because he doesn’t want to look too bad in comparison to his center fielder, PCA. Suzuki has slightly above average speed and a decent arm.

Ian Happ, 2 years, 41 million

PCA might lose both of his outfield mates next year. That’s OK, he can cover all of Wrigley by himself. He’s a good fielder, a 4-time gold glove winner, with power and walks. He has power, but his .215 batting average is worrisome. Especially as it is driven more by an increase in his strikeout rate than a slight drop in BABIP.

Randy Arozarena, 2 years, 38 million

Having his best offensive season since he burst onto the scene at the end of the 2020 season and hit like Hank Aaron through the World Series. He has drastically cut down his strikeouts without giving up power. While he knows how to steal a base (20 in 27 tries) his speed is not what it used to be. Sprint speed has dropped a bit below average.

Arozarena is not a particularly good defender and his arm is below average. He is probably headed for a DH role in the near future.

Taylor Ward, 2 years, 33 million

I wrote a full article about his unique season last month. He traded his power in Anaheim for a ton of walks in Baltimore before he was dealt at the deadline. Since he’s gone to Seattle he hasn’t hit at all, and has zero walks and zero homers. He’s missed some time to injury recently. One way or another, Ward is a good offensive player and a respectable defender.

Trent Grisham, 2 years, 52 million

He’s played center field for the Yankees but his days there should be limited. Speed is slightly below average. Whoever signs him should plan on him playing a corner. A good offensive player, he has recently cut his strikeout rate to well below average (17 percent) while still drawing walks and hitting homers.

Daulton Varsho, 2 years, 43 million

Speed is only average, but he remains a plus defender. Varsho gets great jumps and takes the right routes to the ball and has no fear of running into a wall. He had shoulder surgery before the 2025 season and his arm is below average.

Varsho seems to be still trying to figure out who he is as a hitter. Last year he was a power hitter. This year he’s cut down his swing, gone more to the opposite field, and increased his batting average at the cost of power. I like the power hitting Varsho better. Has struggled after the deadline trade to Houston.

Luis Robert, 1 year, 22 million

Robert looked like a star with power, speed, and defense in 2023. Since then he has struggled at the plate and struggled to stay on the field. His 2026 season with the Mets is a complete disaster. There is no way he’ll get the projected money. I strongly doubt the Mets will pick up the 20 million player option on him. His skills are still there, I expect some team will shop for a bargain and give him a similar deal to what Tampa Bay paid Cedric Mullins last offseason.

George Springer, 1 year, 12 million

George Springer signed a 150-million-dollar contract with Toronto after the 2020 season and he seemed to be on a predictable downward path. In his first season he played like a superstar but only for 78 games. In 2021 he was a good player. In 2022 he was average, and in 2023 he looked like an old, washed up player with 2 years left to go.

Then Springer turned things around, declaring that 2025 was to be THE SUMMER OF GEORGE! He established a new career high in rBat+, finished 7th in the MVP voting, and helped his team to game 7 of the World Series.

This year he’s back to a decline but isn’t completely washed up yet. He still has power, will take a walk, has a reasonable strikeout rate, and average sprint speed. He’s been used at DH because he’s always battling some kind of injury, but could play a few games in the outfield here and there in the right situation.

That is an incredible case study. The Angels pay Mike Trout that much every two years. Take any two years at random from Trout for that time frame and you get one very good year with about 120 games played, and one year where he misses more games than he plays.

The Dodgers are paying almost as much money for just one single year from Kyle Tucker. The Yankees are paying more than 75 million just this season for Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger.

The Rays are not only operating way cheaper than these teams, they are still able to compete and often beat the big money teams on the field. In that 6 year period they have two playoff appearances, two years finishing slightly under .500, and this year. While they haven’t clinched a playoff spot yet, they currently hold the AL’s best record.

So how do they do it? Are they just producing more good players through the draft and international signings? Not really.

The draft gave them 3 players. Kevin Kiermaier was a 31st round pick in 2010, a round that no longer exists. His career is unusual as he played most of it in Tampa Bay, and was not traded as soon as he became slightly more expensive. He’s on the list for his 2021-22 seasons. His calling card was defense, but considering that the Trop is a pitcher’s park, Kevin’s offense was only slightly below average. He also added value on the bases.

Chandler Simpson is on the list for this year and last. He was a second rounder in 2022. His value is in his legs, both on the bases and in the field, and strong contact skills that allow him to play despite having no power at all.

Josh Lowe was a first round pick, number 13 overall, in 2016. He looked like a budding star in 2023, a .290 hitter with power and speed. In his other 3 years getting significant playing time for the Rays he was just slightly better than replacement level. He’s now an Angel.

Only one outfielder in this group came from the free agent market - Cedric Mullins. Mullins is not a great player, he has flaws in his game. He’s 31 years old and so is beginning the down side of his career. He strikes out too much and has not hit for average over the last 4 years. He does have some strengths though - good speed, strong defense, and enough power that you have to respect him. The Rays probably signed him because it was an ideal opportunity. Mullins wasn’t getting any interest from other teams, so they swooped in and gave him a 7-million-dollar contract for one year. In a market where free agents generally are getting 11-12 million per WAR, Mullins represented a bargain. So far he has given them 1.1 WAR, so they are already turning a profit with a month and a half to go.

The majority of their outfielders have come through trades. These are not the kind of trades where you give up significant assets for proven players. Sometimes it’s a minor leaguer for minor leaguer trade. Often it is part of a sell - the Rays are moving some player because he is starting to get expensive and they pick up a minor league outfielder as a throw in.

Brett Phillips, Luke Raley, and Jake Mangum are guys who they acquired without giving up significant talent. For the latter 2 cases, what the Rays do is let other teams see that this player has some MLB talent, then flip him for greater value. They did this with Raley (to the Mariners) and Mangum (to the Pirates) after one year. They can do this because they know where to look for decent cheap outfielders.

Another 6 outfielders came to Tampa when they were trying to sell on another player. Usually it’s a player who is starting to get more expensive through arbitration. Most teams look at a guy like Isaac Paredes, a versatile infielder with 20-30 homerun power, as an asset. The Rays did too, as long as he was pre-arbitration. In 2024 his salary jumped to 3.4 million on his first arbitration year. This is not 1990, when 3.4 million went to the very best players in the game. Most teams consider that peanuts. Not the Rays though, they shipped him off to the Cubs at the trade deadline, bringing back Christopher Morel.

Morel represents the only miss by the Rays on this list, the only outfielder here who gave them less than replacement level (-0.3 in 2025). I can see why they wanted him. He is versatile - playing every spot except pitcher and catcher - and as recently as 2023 had a slugging percentage over .500. He just didn’t hit for them. Every other player on this list was above replacement level for each season the Rays gave him 200 or more PA. That is a very strong record of avoiding disasters. Across MLB, only 80 percent of outfielders with similar PA in years 2021-26 were above replacement. Some teams are better at this than others - the Angels only got 70 percent above replacement level. That includes some very expensive mistakes like Justin Upton and Jorge Soler.

Others coming aboard as Tampa Bay sold assets are Austin Meadows (who they sold on at EXACTLY the right time), Johnny DeLuca, Jose Siri, Richie Palacios, and Kam Misner. DeLuca came over from the Dodgers in the Tyler Glasnow trade that you could see coming a mile away. At the end of 2022, Glasnow was looking at one more year before he could be a free agent. The Rays signed him to a 2-year extension. This paid him 5 million for 2023 and 25 million for 2024. Of course, they had no intention of ever paying a pitcher 25 million. As soon as 2023 was done they shipped him off to the Dodgers, who think that kind of money is perfectly fine to give to someone for 5-10 regular season starts and a well-rested postseason schedule.

Ryan Vilade, currently in their outfield mix, came over not in a trade but a straight purchase. It probably wasn’t all that much money. Vilade is a 27-year-old career minor leaguer who had been through 5 different organizations. He is now a solid contributor in the 2026 Tampa Bay outfield.

Two trades do not quite fit the same narrative as the others - Randy Arozarena and Manuel Margot. Arozarena was acquired from the Cardinals before the 2020 season. He was unknown and cheap, which fits the plan. They did however give up significant value for him, Matthew Liberatore, who was a consensus top 100 prospect across all the ranking systems.

Margot was acquired from the Padres before the 2020 season. He was cheap by Dodger standards but expensive by Ray standards, making between 2.5-7 million in his four years in Tampa. To get him they gave up Emilio Pagan, a relief pitcher who had a 96-13 strikeout to walk ratio and was still a year away from his first arbitration award. It was unusual simply because Tampa Bay is generally on the cheap end of deals like this.

If you wanted to try and emulate their strategy, what should you look for?

First of all, focus on defense and athleticism. This group is collectively +2 runs above average in batting, which is amazingly good considering 1) their cost and 2) their other strengths. They are +50 runs in baserunning and avoiding double plays. On defense, they are +75 runs.

Second, you have a very specific age range to focus on. You want prime age players. Almost all of these guys are between age 25 and 29. Lowe and Simpson, products of their own farm system, are the only ones to play at age 24. Kiermaier and Mullins are the only to play above age 30, and Kiermaier was 32 in his last year with the team.

I don’t think they would hesitate to play a younger outfielder if they came up with the next Mike Trout or Ken Griffey Jr. After all, Junior Caminero is only 22 and on his way to his second 40-homer season. What they do not do however is develop players at the major league level. The Angels brought Jo Adell up at age 21 and he was awful. He didn’t have even a semblance of a good season until he was 26, and a year after that he was traded at the deadline as a guy whose service time was ticking.

The Rays won’t get top prospects at age 22 or 23 with these kinds of trades. What they can do however is target the guys who are a bit past prospect age, who maybe have taken a bit longer to figure this game out. They give these guys a chance, and before they hit 30 and start to decline, they move them out for the next guy.

Let’s imagine the ideal candidate:

1. He’s been in the minors for 5-7 years. It took him a while to learn how to hit but now he is in AAA and has a .380 OBP and .525 slugging.

2. He runs well

3. His defensive metrics grade out well

If you have a player like that in your farm system, expect a call from Tampa Bay soon.

First Base

This is a very unlikely group. You won’t see a Freddie Freeman or Pete Alonso type, a star player who has produced for many years as a first baseman and is ready to cash in. Before the season you could not see these guys coming.

Luis Garcia

I don’t think he’s a free agent, he’ll have one more year of arbitration. MLBTR lists him as an upcoming free agent, but both Fangraphs and BBref show him just shy of 5 years service entering the season. I’ll go with 2 out of 3 unless he gets to file. Garcia was a league average hitting second baseman entering the season, and a brutal defender. He’s moved to first, found a home defensively, and is having his best year on offense. Garcia makes great contact and rarely takes a walk. This has not changed. He is hitting the ball a lot harder this year, setting a new career high in homers well before the trade deadline.

Nathaniel Lowe

2 years, 31 million. He was a solid 2-3 WAR player from 2021-2024. An above average hitter with decent power and walks. On defense, acceptable at slightly below average. He’s not in the lineup for his speed. He hit replacement level in 2025 as the Nationals released him in August and the Red Sox got him for nothing. In the offseason he signed with the Reds for one year and 1.75 million, which is what you give a guy who is just slightly better than the minor league free agents.

Lowe hit well for the Reds, back to his Ranger level. He was traded to Cleveland at the deadline.

Jake Bauers

2 years, 27 million. Bauers is having a better year than Lowe, but has less of a track record. He’s a guy I thought was going to hit about 8-10 years ago when he had some good showings as a prospect. He bounced around for years and never fulfilled that promise, until this year. He’s hitting .268 with power and a decent walk rate. Runs the bases well for a slugger. Not a great defender but can handle an outfield corner if needed. He’s doing it for one of baseball’s best organizations in Milwaukee. He’s probably not going to sign with the Dodgers, they eat bigger fish. He’ll be playing for a team that handles player development slightly worse than Milwaukee, and that is the best case scenario. Whatever they’ve done to untap his potential, I don’t think it sticks.

Second Base

Gleyber Torres

4 years, 108 million

Well, that’s what the model says. I’ll take the under. He’s a good player though. His plate discipline has become very good. Last year he took 85 walks. This year his walk rate is similar in less playing time to give him a .370 OBP. His 38 homer season at age 22 was an all-time fluke. First of all, 2019 was perhaps the juiciest baseball ever, and second, he hit way too many of those against an Oriole team that did not have major league quality pitching. He has since become a consistent 15-20 homer man. His OPS+ has been between 102 and 118 each of the last 5 seasons. His defense is solid. Torres is an above average regular. Many teams could do worse.

Brandon Lowe

3 years 52 million

Lowe makes his living by hitting the ball out of the ballpark. He’s got a lot of swing and miss in his game, and his walk rate is not enough to give him a good OBP. The power is real though, enough to make him an above average hitter in each of his 9 seasons. He’s generally been a below average defender but has had a good year in 2026. I doubt that sticks, he’s in his early 30s now and will likely transition to first or DH in the next few years. He’s a valuable player right now but has a skillset that can disappear quickly.

Shortstop

J.P. Crawford

2 years, 35 million

He probably won’t get that much. Batting only .212 right now, but has 10 homers and 50 walks in about a half season worth of playing time to make him close to average as a hitter. The Mariners have transitioned him away from short, with 1/3 of his games at third base this year. At 31 he’s on decline. Probably gets a one year contract for a team that doesn’t have a long term option at the postion.

Third Base

Alec Bohm

2 years 36 million

This seems way too high. He’s just not a good player. He gave the team slightly above average offense from 2022-2025. This year he’s fallen off. Most of that can be blamed on a fluky .243 BABIP, his power and strike zone numbers are not any different than usual. He seems like an infield version of Castellanos though. A hitter who isn’t all that productive combined with a terrible glove. I could see him going for something like 1 year, 5 million.

I learned how to work with this in an online database instead of generating about 20 thousand individual player html pages. So far I have found the site to load fairly quickly, and this also allows an easier path to team pages and leaderboards.

Starting Page

I’ll share some highlights from the greatest of the players.

Honus Wagner’s 1908 season was his greatest. From his BBref page, he had his highest single season WAR (11.5) and OPS+ (205). The new data shows he was even better than that. His fielding rating on BBref is a placeholder, a metric I came up with 15-20 years ago to give a very rough estimate for defensive value when you have no play by play data. If I could have done something better back then, I would have.

Now we have the data. Wagner’s defensive rating goes from +1 to +14. He picks up a few edges here and there. Playing in a low run environment, he gets more wins than you might expect from those runs. Wagner’s 1908 season is now a 14.3 WAR season, or 53 Victory shares. The latter ties him with Babe Ruth for the highest by a position player. He was 34 years old that season, we have about a decade of great Wagner years to add before his record is complete. In 1909 he put up another 10 WAR season.

Ty Cobb won the triple crown in 1909. This one was good for 43 Victory shares and 11.6 WAR. We have one more Cobb batting title to add, 1907, which I expect will be added with Retrosheet’s November/December update. In 1906 he played a partial season, and in 1905 he was a raw rookie batting .238 in 41 games. The PBP record is nearly complete.

Tris Speaker in 1909 had his first full season. He was great, but at 6.0 WAR not yet the player he would become. He played only 31 games in 1908. His record is now only missing 7 games he played as a teenager in 1907. Speaker’s defensive runs in 1909 were only 7 above average, 1 by range and 6 by arm. This was, however, just enough to edge past Willie Mays (218 to 216) for the most defensive runs for center field.

That record may not stand. Willie might move ahead if I include some of the deduced games Retrosheet has instead of only using the full play by play. For now I’d consider them in a virtual tie.

Eddie Collins was a decent rookie in 1908 and a 40 Victory Share superstar in 1909. His career WAR stands just short of 130, and we have only 2 partial seasons left to add, for a total of 20 games.

Big Ed Walsh had his greatest season in 1908. He won 40, completed 42, and threw 464 innings. His season comes out to 13.3 WAR and 60 Victory shares. Walsh has 4 more seasons to add to the record, but none anywhere close to as big as this one.

Christy Mathewson had a great 1909 (9.4 WAR) and a legendary 1908 (13.3). The 1908 season was his greatest (37 wins, 11 shutouts, 390 innings) however his record is far from complete. We have 7 years to go to capture all of his ace-level years. One interesting find - he was +12 runs defensively in 1908. This is tied for the greatest fielding seasons by a pitcher from 1908 on. That doesn’t change his value ratings - he already gets credit for that run prevention in his pitching metrics.

A few days ago they were virtually tied. Kyle is the far better hitter, it is his job after all, the one he is designated to perform. Walls is a better defender at one of the most important defensive positions and also is an excellent baserunner. As a hitter, he generally does not.

Some claim that the WAR ranking is 100%, obviously wrong, because of the eye test. Schwarber is a big star. A popular player. A regular strong postseason performer. An All-star. And a guy who got a 150-million-dollar contract last winter. When Walls hits free agency, I don’t know how much money he’ll get, but safe to say it won’t be 150 million.

If the eye test is telling you that Schwarber is obviously better, then please help the rest of us out in finding where the math is wrong. Baseball Reference gives us the components.

On offense, Kyle and Taylor have about equal numbers of doubles and triples. Kyle has more singles (11) and walks (42). He also has made 92 more outs, because of lineup position and he plays nearly every day while Walls does not. Then there is the biggest advantage, Kyle has outhomered Taylor 35-0. It all adds up to Kyle being 37 runs better on offense. Feel free to dispute that, but this is really standard stuff by now. The way to rate the hitters has changed very little since Pete Palmer and John Thorn published the Hidden Game of Baseball over 40 years ago.

On defensive value, about half of the difference is the value of showing up on the field for the most important defensive position other than catcher or pitcher. Kyle has a -9 position adjustment for DH, and Walls has a +5 for shortstop. The other half is Walls playing outstanding defense, 15 runs above average, as reported by Baseball Reference. They get this from Sports Info Solutions.

Is any of that in dispute? Why yes, it is! Fangraphs uses the defensive ratings from MLB Statcast, and they show Walls as slightly negative on defense, 3 runs below average. Plug that number in and he is near a replacement level player.

In general, I have endorsed the Statcast defensive metrics over every alternative, including the ones I have invented. Statcast metrics are based on unbiased and exact measures from MLB’s player and ball tracking. For example, when they look at an infield play, they ask how hard the ball was hit, which direction it was hit, and where was the fielder stationed when the play began. What are the chances of the player reaching that ball? If he does reach it, how far away is he from first base, who is the runner, and how fast is that runner moving down the line? It is really an incredible model, and one that I dreamed of having access to 20 or 25 years ago.

Every other system is guessing. Based on X number of balls hit in a very rough general direction, what percentage of shortstops make the out at first? This is what other systems try to estimate. Their only friend is sample size. Over 400 ground balls you’d hope that a player is not facing a level of difficulty that different from average and thus you can rate him by how many of those he fields.

However, I am still not 100 percent certain that in this case the Baseball Reference numbers are wrong. I compared Statcast infield OAA to OBP on ground balls. In other words, hits + reaching on error per ground ball at bat.

Many of the teams come in as expected, if you are making more outs above average then you should have a high defensive efficiency on ground balls. There is one humongous outlier though, and it is Tampa Bay. OAA is telling us that their infielders have made 30 fewer outs than average. However, Tampa Bays is somehow turning these ground balls into real outs at a very high percentage, only the Dodgers and Cubs have a lower ground ball OBP than they do. Tampa Bay is +30 on this metric, for a 60 out discrepancy.

How are they doing that? Do they just get far easier ground balls to field than everyone else? Or is their positioning so good that (even with limitations on the shift) they are once again breaking baseball?

The other teams should be embarrassed if they are really getting that big of a value swing from better positioning. 60 plays has a value of 45 runs, which has a free agent value of about 50 million dollars.

I can guarantee you that you don’t need to pay 50 million dollars a year for a top quality team of analysts that can better optimize fielder positioning.

Tampa Bays is playing, according to Statcast, a below average group of infielders. Junior Caminero, one of the best young hitters around, is not very good in the field. Their primary second baseman, Richie Palacios, is a converted outfielder. Walls himself is nothing special. Yet somehow this group is giving them the results on ground balls that you would expect from elite fielders. Should some of that value filter down to Taylor Walls? If not, where does it go?

If we had more confidence that Walls was indeed a gold glove candidate and defensive anchor, then yes, he absolutely could be considered as valuable as a top offensive player. Searching through history, let’s look at the 1975 Orioles.

Mark Belanger hit .226 with OBP and SLG under .300. He was also a key part of an all-time great defense along with his teammates Grich, Robinson, and Blair. Those Orioles had a league best .731 defensive efficiency. Belanger’s estimated share of that was 35 runs, giving this weak hitter a 5.0 WAR season.

His teammate Ken Singleton played the outfield, but not particularly well, he never had much range. He hit .300 that year with 118 walks and a 153 OPS+, a great hitting season. His WAR was about the same as Belanger, 5.1.

In that case I believe it. To play baseball the way Earl Weaver wanted you need pitching, defense, and three run homers. Belanger gave them #2. Singleton that year mostly set up #3 (only 15 homers, but a .415 OBP).

Yordan 5.5

McGonigle 5.4

Witt 5.3

Cease 5.1

Rafaela 5.0

Alvarez however is leading in the triple crown categories. There seems to be a rule that triple crown = MVP no matter what. Call it the Miguel Cabrera rule. It certainly was not in effect when Ted Williams and Lou Gehrig played.

If Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alvarez were in the same league this would be a good battle reminiscent of Trout and Cabrera in 2012. Cabrera had the triple crown, Trout was a slightly better overall hitter (OPS+ 168 to 164) and lapped the field in baserunning and defensive value.

Rafaela is among those challengers and also plays center field, but can be described as a poor man’s PCA. He’s a good hitter but still swings at anything and his OBP is only .328. PCA has more power and better baserunning numbers. Rafaela is an outstanding defender and will probably win another gold glove, but PCA is the one that makes catches that no other player can make.

A lot can happen in the last 2 months, so the award favorite might, and probably will shift before then. As things stand now, a very slight lead in value plus the bonus of the triple crown makes Alvarez the favorite.

Alvarez, in addition to homers and RBI, leads the league in runs, hits, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, and total bases, for 10 offensive categories. In addition, he is only 4 back from leading the league in walks and doubles.

Miguel Cabrera only led in 6 offensive categories.

The 1989 triple crown winner, Clu Haywood, probably led in 8 categories. In addition to homers, average, and RBI he very likely led in slugging, OPS, OPS+, and total bases. Just because most people do when they have homers and RBI wrapped up. He also led the league in nose hair, as we were informed by broadcaster Harry Doyle. I don’t know where Alvarez ranks in this offensive category as Statcast as of now does not track that.

Other triple crown winners with 10 offensive categories are Yastrzemski, Ted Williams (both times), Ducky Medwick, Chuck Klein and Ty Cobb. Rogers Hornsby with 11 in 1922 has the most offensive triple crown in live ball history. Hornsby led the league in runs, hits, doubles, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, and total bases.

Back in 1887, Tip O’Neill won the triple crown and swept the rate stats. He also led the league in runs scored, overall hits, and every type of extra base hit.

It’s even closer than it looks. Ohtani’s OBP is boosted by 16 intentional walks, PCA has 4. Last year he swung at everything. This year PCA has more unintentional walks than Ohtani.

Pete does have an edge in baserunning. He is 28 for 35 on the bases and +5 runs for that. Ohtani is about average this year as a sore knee has limited his baserunning.

What the most valuable question comes down to is this: Is it more valuable to be able to pitch every 8th or 9th day (Ohtani has 14 in his team’s 115 games), or is it more valuable to play center field every day and make catches that no other human has been capable of making?

We have a good stat for pitcher value in WAR. While sometimes the two major reporters of this stat can vary widely, they agree on Ohtani. He has 2.9 BBref WAR and 3.0 Fangraphs WAR.

I hope you realize there is a problem with comparing that to his defensive WAR, as shown on BBref. The stat is misnamed, replacement level has nothing to do with it. It is simply defensive runs above average plus a position adjustment.

There is an alternative though, DVoDH, defensive value over the DH. This includes a replacement level in it. Last year Pete Crow-Armstrong had a DVoDH of 38 runs. It is not reported in real time, so we’ll have to do a calculation.

By Statcast, he has saved 24 runs above the average outfielder. Note that is not the average center fielder, but the average of all outfielders. If we use this number, we have to adjust the position adjustment used by BBref. They give -7 runs to the corner positions per full season, and +2.5 runs to the center fielder. Average those out, and outfielders have a position adjustment of -4 per year, or -3 for the 3/4 mark of the year.

Pete has played 991 innings, so his value over the DH is 15 * 991/1350 or +11 runs.

Add that all up and he is 32 runs, or 3.2 wins, more valuable than the designated hitter. Which is convenient, because Ohtani (when not pitching) is zero runs above the DH, by definition. He has not played an inning in the field, other than pitcher, since 2021.

As of today, Pete has a very tiny edge over Ohtani in combined batting and defensive value. He further separates himself as a plus baserunner. He demonstrated this today. Right after his potential game winning single resulted in his catcher being thrown out at the plate, Pete stole third and scored the winning run as the ball was thrown into left field.

A lot can happen over the last 8 weeks. Last season Pete was an MVP candidate but took himself out of the running by hitting 188/237/295 over the last 2 months of the season. Too early to turn in the ballot today, but as of this minute PCA looks like the front-runner.

But the ball and strike challenges have worked out as well as could be hoped for, and MLB deserves credit not only for adding this rule, but for a well planned implementation.

Unlike the replay, the ball and strike challenges almost never waste any time. A player challenges, and before they finish showing a graphic of the pitch location, the verdict has been made.

We’ll never see another game as poorly umpired as Eric Gregg in 1997. The Braves would have won so many challenges that day that even Gregg probably would have started calling the pitches a little better. Also, Livan Hernandez would not have been able to react as he did and stretch the strike zone. “He’s giving me 11 inches off the plate, let’s see if he’ll give me 12”.

Another part of the game I will never miss is the complaining (whether justified or not) from batters, managers, teammates in the dugout when calls are not going their way. These guys were not the only ones to do it, but stick in my mind as some of the most annoying: David Ortiz and Aaron Boone.

I don’t remember if Boone did it as a player, but up to last year it was hard to find a Yankee game where he isn’t jawing from the bench every time his Yankee hitters have a strike called on them.

Ortiz was the worst of it from the hitter perspective. Any pitch he didn’t swing at was taken as a personal offense if called a strike. He’s been retired for a decade, but if he was playing today the game has an easy solution for him.

David, you have 2 challenges. If that strike call was wrong, use them! If you don’t, then shut the F up and get back in the box.

I like that it has added some strategy. What’s the count, the base situation, is it worth it to challenge now or save to later. What catchers really know the strike zone? Can they add some value by knowing which pitches to challenge.

Anyway, congratulations MLB. Job well done.

Anthony Eyenson might be the top guy traded, but I can’t give you any kind of reliable projection for a guy with a total of 68 professional innings. I don’t incorporate college stats into the projections.

Usually we have better samples, maybe 2-3 season of minor league stats for a lot of these guys. I’m excluding the ones who don’t meet the criteria for being included in the projections, which is reaching a certain number of PA at A+ level or above.

1. Moises Ballesteros, Angels

He came over from the Cubs for a reliever, Zeferjahn. The WAR projection might be too optimistic. It depends on him playing catcher and developing into an acceptable player. Even if the Angels see him as a DH, his hitting talent compares well with anyone on this list. He is having a down season but has already shown a capable MLB level bat in the past.

2. Boston Smith, Mariners

Part of the Luis Castillo trade. This is the second time he has been traded since he was drafted by the National last year. His projection also depends on him staying behind the plate. He has serious power and patience. Pair that with swing and miss and you have a 3-true-outcomes god. If he’s a catcher, he’s in the Mickey Tettleton mold. I’ll take that and a bowl of Fruit Loops. He has already shown top of the line patience and power at AA so he doesn’t have too much further to get that to an MLB level.

3. Zyhir Hope, Tigers

Traded with a few others for a 2-time Cy Young winner. It might take him a few years to get there but he should be a productive power/speed guy who can take a few walks. Should be able to play solid defense in the corners.

4. Sammy Stafura, Mets

Mets got him for Luke Weaver. It’s an open question whether he’ll make enough contact to stick in the big leagues, but if he can he’ll provide power and a plus glove at shortstop.

5. Josiah Ragsdale, Cardinals

Not a bad return for taking a flyer on Dustin May. Ragsdale could be a useful corner outfielder with patience and power.

6. Nacho Alvarez Jr, Angels

Good return for a low cost middle reliever. Alvarez does not have star potential but could be useful as a strong defensive infielder with versatility and plus defense. He is having a down season in 2026 at AAA but already demonstrated his skills at the big league level in 2025. With a name like this, he has huge potential endorsing ballpark snacks.

7. Omar Alfonzo, Yankees

They picked him up from Pittsburgh in the Doval trade. He doesn’t have a high ceiling and his offensive skills are limited. He is a very good defensive catcher though, so he could be around for a long time as a backup.

8. Jonathon Long, Marlins

He’s 24 years old and in his second year of AAA. Solid all-around hitter with medium range power. I expect he’ll be the Marlins first baseman before the year is out.

9. Arjun Nimmala, Angels

A top-50 MLB prospect, first round draft pick. One of the more recognized names among the prospects changing teams. Doesn’t look to have one outstanding tool but a solid all-around player. His defensive ratings at short are slightly above average in the minors, so he should either be able to stick at short or become a plus defender at second or third.

10. Ty Southisene, Blue Jays

He’s not going to be a big league shortstop, mostly likely he’ll play second. Probably doesn’t have the arm for short. His defensive rates for last season were excellent at second base. This year they are very poor at shortstop. In general shortstops are better fielders than second basemen but his splits are greater than usual. Makes contact and will take walks in the minors. No power at all, so I doubt the walk rate will translate.

11. Brett Bateman, Blue Jays

Along with Southisene, he was the return from the Cubs for Kevin Gausman. Similar profile to Ty, he has been contact and OBP over power. Excellent speed and defense in center, making him a very good comp to current Blue Jay Myles Straw.

12. Marcelo Mayer, Giants

It is shocking how quickly his stock has fallen for the former #4 overall draft pick. About 2 years ago he was considered an untouchable prospect, much like Franklin Arias is today. He has not been productive over his first 114 big league games. The Red Sox gave up on him, trading him for a generic reliever. He’s only 23 and the Giants are hoping the Red Sox gave up too soon.

13. Nick Mitchell, Nationals

Good defensive outfielder, kind of a lottery ticket with the bat.

14. Jefferson Rojas, Mets

Came over in the Clay Holmes trade. Good power potential, probably not a long term shortstop.

15. Adrian Santana, Marlins

From the Rays in the Liam Hicks deal. Glove is solid. Makes contact and runs well, very little power.

16. Enddy Azocar, Orioles

Included in the Rutschman trade. He’s hit for some power in the low minors, bad strike zone control, solid defense. He’s only 19. The median projection looks like a marginal fourth outfielder, but there is a lot of spread around that median. About equal chance that he is a solid MLB regular or a guy who never makes it.

17. Jacob Cozart, Angels

He was in AA for Cleveland and dealt for Jo Adell. The Angels will send him to the best named team in all of AA, the Rocket City Trash Pandas. Cozart is a good defensive catcher with some power but a lot of swing and miss. It is looking like the future direction of the team will prioritize defense behind the plate and anything he gives you on offense is a bonus. The Angels have a younger catcher, Juan Flores, who is also in AA and is a defense first prospect. The two might form a Trash Panda platoon in AA and in a few years bring that to the big leagues.

18. Emilien Pitre, Mets

Came over in the Peralta deal from Tampa Bay. Good speed and contact, this year has walked a lot more than he has struck out, which is hard to find at any level in modern baseball. Has mostly played second base but his metrics there are poor, might end up moving to the outfield.

19. Eddie Micheletti, Angels

An outfielder in AA with numbers that look like a solid, not great player in AA and a last name that sounds like he belongs in a Billy Joel song. At age 24 might not have enough projection left to be a useful big leaguer, but like his ex-wife Brenda, Eddie will always find a way to survive.

20. Ryan Sprock, Blue Jays

Acquired for Tommy Nance. He gets on base. Defensive metrics are awful behind the plate. Jays might see if he can settle in at third base or left field instead.

21. Christian Franklin, Orioles

He’s currently up with the Orioles. Already 26 years old, does not have much projection. At best a fourth outfielder.

22. John Spikerman, Mets

Came from the Phillies in the Brooks Raley trade. Not much of a hitter, but an outstanding defensive player with speed. His upside as a major leaguer is if someone wants him around as speed or defense off the bench in playoff time, like the Royals had with the late, great Terrance Gore.

23. Billy Amick, Mets

He has some power but his extreme swing and miss tendencies makes it unlikely he’ll ever show that power.

24. Kaeden Kent, Giants

Solid numbers so for in A ball but strikeout rate does not support his continued ability to hit for average.

25. Cole Mathis, Mets

Has some power. If it doesn’t work out as a hitter, he was a solid pitcher in college too.

26. Dameury Pena, Blue Jays

From Twins in the Hoffman deal. Has speed and good contact skills. He is not any kind of second baseman. I assume they’ll try him in the outfield soon.

The following table shows their current age, which year they reach their peak projection, WAR, defense, and rate stats for that peak season. This is generally when the player gets to age 26 or 27.

Projections were updated yesterday and incorporate the player movement. I also updated my standings on the Baseballprojection.com front page. Up until now those were showing preseason projections, some of which are now quite laughable. Like the Mets and Tigers on top of their divisions or the White Sox and Rays on the bottom of theirs.

Right now I have a combination of 1. Standings to date on 8-3 and 2. Projected rest of season performance based on updated projections and player acquisitions.

The Angels were among the biggest sellers out there. This should be expected given that they are a terrible ballclub on track to finish dead last with all of these players. So why not at least try to get some prospects back for some of them? This is how losing teams play it these days, and in best case scenarios we have seen the White Sox go from out-losing the 1962 Mets to leading the AL Central within a 2-year time frame.

The Angels bullpen has been a source of frustration all season long. It has not been uniformly bad. In many cases the bullpen has done a good job covering the middle innings, then once they get to the 9th whoever is standing last gives up the lead and they lose. Ryan Zeferjahn in his final outing with the team earned his 4th save, tying Jordan Romano (who was released in April) for the team lead. In second place is Kirby Yates with 3. He was traded too. The Angels don’t have anyone left with more than a single save. But who cares? They were already blowing every close lead they had. It can’t get any worse.

Yates, Brent Suter, and Chase Silseth were all traded for modest returns. Zeferjahn, who has shown extreme swing and miss stuff this year, brought back some interesting players. Mason McGwire is a starting pitcher in the low minors. His control has improved this year after missing 2025 to an elbow injury. He is of course, the son of legendary slugger Mark, but he is not the kid who was following Mark around in the summer of 1998. That kid is well into his 30s by now. Mason was born in 2004, a few years after Mark retired. Mason has a mid 90s fastball and good curve, and now ranks as the Angel #15 prospect per MLB. He was the second player in the deal as they also got “catcher” Moises Ballesteros.

Ballesteros is a short stocky 22-year-old hitter who has struggled a bit this year but made a good debut last year. His minor league track record is promising. He reminds one of a lefty Alejandro Kirk. He’s the same height as Kirk. While not quite as round, his listed weight of 215 is quite big for that frame. Where can you play him? He’s too short for first base, too slow for outfield or other infield spots. If he has the skills to catch, then wonderful. If not, he’s a DH.

Angels have made some comments about prioritizing defense at the catcher spot. Ballesteros might not fit that. They already had a good defensive prospect in the minors with Juan Flores and added Jacob Cozart in another deal. What I would like to see is the team cut Jorge Soler and let Ballesteros DH for the rest of the year, with a few games at catcher here and there to give others a break and keep his skills fresh.

Jo Adell went to Cleveland in the Cozart trade. Adell had another year of team control, but they did the right thing in letting him go. His OBP has never been over .300. His power has dropped off after hitting 37 last year. He had the amazing 3 HR saved game (that the Angels won 1-0). That highlight will live on, but despite his occasional wall climbing plays, Adell was once again a below average outfielder. Despite good speed, he just does not seem to get good enough jumps and often ends up with catchable balls dropping in front of him.

The biggest return came when they traded Jose Soriano to Toronto. Soriano is a top to mid rotation starter with 2 years of team control after this one, a very valuable package. The return had to be big, and it was. Among three players, the key to the deal was Arjun Nimmala, a 20-year-old shortstop and former first round pick.

He doesn’t have numbers that make you say “wow” but he has not been in extreme hitter’s leagues yet. He will - as soon as he moves up to AAA Salt Lake City. In 2026 he’s batting a solid 265/364/453. He has some power, a bit of speed. Between 2 levels he is +3 runs on defense this season. Nothing about him says superstar but he could be a very good all-around player.

Why are the Blue Jays trading for a deadline starter when their season is all but over? They are also sellers, dealing away Kevin Gausman and Daulton Varsho. For them it’s all about getting a jump start on 2027. Toronto has spent significant resources making sure they have a strong starting rotation. The days of Gausman, Berrios, Bassitt, Scherzer, and Beiber are over or soon to be over for them. They have a good foundation to build on with Cease, Soriano, Yesavage, and maybe a second try from Cody Ponce next year.

Dodgers get the biggest name in Tarik Skubal because of course they do. I was surprised that another team couldn’t top their offer. At this point Zyhir is just Hope - hope that his strikeout tendencies don’t sabotage a good power, speed, and defense package. River Ryan is not a prospect at all. He is two weeks away from turning 28. He’s 4 years older than Paul Skenes and Jacob Misiorowski. Ryan has some talent and might be a decent pitcher but I have no idea how much Detroit can count on him. As a professional he has topped 100 innings just once, and just barely.

The Adley Rutschman era came to an end in Baltimore. He was the number one overall pick and represented the hopes of the Mike Elias regime. When they called him up in 2022 they were in last place with a 16-25 record. About what you expect from a team that had been consistently losing 100 games per year. Rutschman, more than anyone else, turned that team around. From then to the end of the season the Orioles played .554 baseball, then made the playoffs each of the next 2 seasons. It was based around such a young and talented core that it seems hard to believe they are not still ascending. It’s over though, back to the rebuild.

As much as I hate seeing him go, I don’t hate the trade package. Anthony Eyenson is a very talented pitcher, a potential ace. He was the #2 prospect in the Boston system. The Red Sox are taking a big risk in Rutschman. Yes, there is a scenario where he is part of a big October run this year and a core part of the team next year. That’s the upside. The downside? He is currently on the injured list. We have about 8 weeks left in this season. Fangraphs injury report says “no timetable for return.”

What if a setback means he never makes it back this season? And then with the labor issues, will baseball even have a season in 2027? There is a slight, but non-zero, chance that Rutschman will never play a game for the Red Sox.

Two Royals trades to mention, one of my best friends is a Royals fan so when I informed him that they had traded Bailey Falter and Lane Thomas to the Braves the response was along the lines of “Great trade, who did we get”. It has been a frustrating season for the Royals and the names of these two players make them easy targets. Why did they lose? Because stupid Matt Quatraro put Lame Thomas in the leadoff spot and when he went to the bullpen, Bailey Faltered.

The Royals also traded Kris Bubic to the Dodgers for a 17-year-old in rookie ball with an ERA over 10. Bubic is a solid, if currently injured, starter. The Dodgers are apparently making sure their depth is deep. Bubic would make a fine #11 starter on this staff.

Given enough time, inflation will make any contract discussion look silly. Nolan Ryan was the first player to get one million per season. Forty-six years later that’s what teams will pay for mop-up reliever.

Bo did not end up getting even a 200 million deal (something I thought would be appropriate for a 7 or 8 year deal) because he took a short-term for a much higher annual value. The Mets guaranteed him 126 million over 3 years. The second and third years are player options, so there is a chance Bo will be back in the market this year.

The 2026 season has not been kind to Bo. He has been barely over replacement level. His walk and strikeout numbers are normal, right in line with his career average. What he is missing is BABIP (.296, career .334) and power, especially doubles. Last year he hit 44 doubles, this season, 2/3 of the way through, he has only 16.

His maximum exit velocity, 114.9, is better than last season. His barrel and hard hit rates are down, but not dramatically. His wOBA is lower than his xwOBA, suggesting he’s hit into some bad luck. Overall, it looks like an even split between not hitting the ball as well as last year and hitting into bad luck.

Defensively, Bo did not come into the season with a great reputation. His defensive metrics at shortstop suggested he did not have the range for the spot. The Mets understood this, and considering they already have a great shortstop in Francisco Lindor, planned to move him anyway.

Bo has more than played up to expectations in the field this year. Splitting his time between third base (planned) and shortstop (unplanned, filling in for Lindor’s injury) Bo is a +1 fielder for the year. He’s been better at third than short. Last season in the World Series, Bo looked solid enough at second base even though he was not 100% healthy. Right now he looks to have some defensive value. You can play him at third or second and get a solid fielder or play him at short and you get a competent, if below average, defender.

Bo had good speed when he first came up, stealing 25 bases in 26 attempts in 2021. His speed left him quickly, and at this point he rarely attempts a steal. His sprint speed is a full foot below average, at 26 feet per second. He’s not getting any younger, that speed is not coming back.

His projection in the midst of a disappointing season calls for a contract like:

6 years, 131 million

4 years, 104 million

2 years, 58 million

That last figure is significant, because Bo also can decide to take a 2 year, 84 million-dollar contract just by not opting out. If he has a comeback year in 2027, he will again have the opportunity to opt out and seek a longer-term deal in 2028.

Prediction: Bichette will remain a Met in 2027.

Power: Kyle Schwarber

Average: Luis Arraez

Defense: Pete Crow-Armstrong

Arm: Elly De La Cruz

Speed: Himself, or Nasim Nunez

Starting from the bottom up, this player would steal a lot of bases. I was surprised by how many, just based on prorating Nunez’s SB attempts per time on first base. I’m going with Nunez here. While Jazz is having a very good year and is +4 in baserunning runs, Nunez is +6 and leading the league. We are at the halfway two-thirds point, so make that +9 for a full season.

Fielding: PCA is +18 in range this year (and also has a great arm). Make that +27 for a full season. On arm, I’m making this perfect player a center fielder so not sure what I can do with Elly De La Cruz’s arm. So I just looked at the league leader for outfield throwing. That would be Andy Pages and Jackson Merrill, at +5 each. Make that +7 for a full season.

Now we get to the batting. Neither Schwarber or Arraez get hit with a lot of pitches. For a full season of 665 PA, Mr. Perfect gets 4. For walks, I am choosing Schwarber’s rate of 14.3 percent. This might be a big underestimate, but I’ll go with this for now. That gives him 95 walks.

Strikeouts: Going with Arraez’s rate of 0.05, he strikes out only 28 times for the year. This gives him almost 540 times making fair contact with the baseball. Schwarber strikes out so much that he has only made fair contact 228 times yet still has an incredible 33 homers on those. Give him the contact opportunity of Arraez, and we get a new record of 78 homers.

When I first saw this, I thought I made a spreadsheet error. I double and triple checked and there is no error. This is what Kyle Schwarber’s HR rate would be if he was able to eliminate his strikeouts without losing any power. Not a realistic assumption, but we are talking about a hypothetical perfect player.

This is where the walk estimate comes into question, as we saw with Barry Bonds, teams would not allow this guy to hit 78 homers. They would start intentionally walking him so much that maybe he ends up with 45-50 homers and 200 walks. But for now I’ll leave that alone and run the numbers as is.

When he doesn’t homer or strike out, his BABIP is going to be .326. That’s right in the middle of what Luis (.327) and Kyle (.325) have done this year. For Schwarber, this is unusual, well above his career rate of .267. For Arraez, this is his normal rate.

A .326 BABIP, plus the 78 hits on balls sent out of play, gives him a batting average of .403. So in other words, our perfect player is Ted Williams taking Barry Bonds level steroids.

I used the average double and triple percentages, per hit into play, for the two and get 28 doubles and 5 triples. His OBP? .492. His slugging? .883, a new record.

He blows past the 60-60 club and founds the 70/70 club. Using Nasim Nunez’s rate of stolen base attempts per single+BB+HBP, I come up with 78 steals in 88 tries.

His WOBA is .561, which gives him 133 batting runs. This is a new record. Previously, there had been 5 cases of batting runs over 120. All by Ruth and Bonds.

Add in his defense, running, a +5 position adjustment, and 22 replacement runs, this guy comes out to 203 runs better than replacement, or 20 WAR.

The greatest seasons in history have been in the range of 10-12 WAR. This guy would be twice that good. Now just imagine he also has Ohtani’s pitching ability…

Thank you Jazz Chisholm, for providing the inspiration for this post.

Edit: After posting this, I could not get the image of “Ted Williams on Barry Bonds steroids” out of my head. It could have happened, after all, a fellow WW2 vet named Steve Rogers used steroids to great effect.

He was among the first Angels, debuting at age 19 in their first ever season. He earned the starting job late in the following year and held it for the rest of the decade. He was a 6-time All-star. Fregosi originally signed with the Red Sox and had a good year as an 18-year-old in class D league. The Angels picked him up in the expansion draft. I don’t know if this is the greatest expansion draft picks ever but has to be up there.

At this moment the Angels have another power hitting shortstop with a good all-around game, Zach Neto, who may or may not be on the trading block. The Red Sox are possibly one of the teams that would be interested in him. If it happens, I guess we owe them one for 65 years ago, and I hope the Angels get as big a return for him as they did when they traded Fregosi to the Mets in 1971.

Before Neto, Fregosi was the only power hitting Angel shortstop in their history. They have had some decent shortstops, like David Eckstein, Erick Aybar, and Andrelton Simmons. None of them matched up in power. The top 6 spots of Angel HR by a SS are held by just Neto and Fregosi, 3 each. They are the only shortstops in team history to hit 15 or more in a season.

Fregosi was the first Angel shortstop to hit 20, which he did in 1970. It was a great year. He also played great defense, drew 69 walks, and hit .278. He scored 95 runs and drove in 82, a season worth 7.7 wins above replacement. He was only 28 years old.

At that point in his career, he had 45.2 wins above replacement. He was absolutely on a HOF path. For players who played 50 percent or more of their games at shortstop, only 4 players had more up to age 28. This list does not include Honus Wagner, since he started off playing outfield, first base, and third base before finally settling in at short. If this list had been made in 1970, he would have been second to only Arky Vaughan. Since then, he was passed by Robin Yount, Cal Ripken, and Alex Rodriguez.

Let’s look a bit deeper. I’ll take out A-Rod and Vaughan because they are well ahead of Fregosi. Then take out Wells. He only shows a similar WAR to Fregosi because of the smaller number of games we have records for in the Negro Leagues. If Wells had played 162 games per year, his stats would look a lot more like A-Rod’s. That leaves 12 players with WAR through age 28 within 10 either way from Fregosi. Jim turns out to have the fewest WAR from age 29+, even though some of the players on the list are still active.

The ones who didn’t have a lot of injuries or early finishes all had at least 20 more WAR left in the tank. If Fregosi had done that, he would either already be in the Hall of Fame, or he’d be one of the guys like Bobby Grich or Lou Whitaker that sabermetricians can’t believe is still on the outside.

Carlos Correa is still active or at least should be next spring as he tries to return from a season ending injury. Correa a few years ago lost his chance at a mega-contract when he couldn’t pass a physical. It appears the doctors knew what they were doing, he’s had a lot of injuries since then and is no longer anything close to the player he was in his first stint with the Astros.

Travis Jackson is another player who had a lot of injuries. He missed most of his age 28 and 29 seasons, played well at 30 and 31, then had a terrible season at 32. He didn’t get another chance after that.

Stephens and Garciaparra had lots of injuries that limited their playing time as they moved past their 20s. Stephens had his last full season as a shortstop at age 29 and last played in the majors at 34. Garciaparra was also 29 the last year he played full time at short. He retired at 35.

What happened with Fregosi? He had a terrible year with the Angels at age 29, right after his great 22-homer season. It was a total collapse - power, average, defense all were missing. He was traded to the Mets in the offseason in the famous Nolan Ryan deal. Fregosi’s SABR bio does not mention any specific injury to Fregosi. He likely had some kind of injury as he only played 2 games in July. His slump preceded that. He was only hitting .196 on June 30. From August to the end of the season his batting average recovered to .286, though he only hit one homer in that stretch.

With the Mets, the SABR bio mentions a thumb injury. Fregosi said that adjusting to a new league and pitchers, while at the same time adjusting to a new position (third base) was very difficult for him. He also admitted to being out of shape that year.

He was off to another slow start for the Mets in 1973 when they traded him to the Rangers, where he played until 1977. One interesting fact about his Rangers tenure is that his bat recovered - he hit about as well with the Rangers as he did the previous decade with the Angels. The difference was that he had lost his defensive value, playing mostly at first base and DH, and was a part-time player. His DVoDH was 195 runs for his career, virtually all of it with the Angels. It was exactly zero with Texas. But the batting stats, per 650 plate appearances:

Makes a little less contact, batting average drops slightly, walks the same, less extra base power but more homers. This looks like a very normal progression from young player skills to old player skills. I wonder why he didn’t play more with the Rangers. Even if his defensive skills were gone, he was as good or better than their other 1B/DH options at least up to 1975. His platoon split was non-existent, over his career he hit righties just as well as he hit lefties.

Among the shortstops I compared him to earlier, one stands out. Banks, Ripken, Correa, Nomar, Lindor, and Stephens had a lot more power. Boudreau, Cronin, Jackson, and Jeter had a lot more batting average. In some cases because of the era they played in. Alan Trammell though looks like a good match statistically.

At age 28 Fregosi was ahead of Trammell, largely because the 1960s were a tougher time for hitters than the 1980s, and Fregosi played in extreme pitcher’s parks (he was in Dodger stadium before Angel stadium opened). Trammell did have his career year at age 29 but otherwise did not age unusually well. He had 4 excellent seasons after age 28 and played his last full season at age 32. From 33 on, he had only 2 seasons with more than 100 games played (112 and 101).

Fregosi fell short of the Hall of Fame. I would not count him as one of the 25 greatest players who have been overlooked. But for a while there, he was absolutely on the path for Cooperstown.

From the defensive side, I have never liked the strategy much. One week ago the Angels took a one run lead into the 9th. Kirby Yates hit the first batter after getting two strikes. It was not an 0-2 pitch, but still, the batter got to first. While Kirby was able to get the next 2 outs while allowing one additional baserunner, he then gave up a 2-out, 2-run double and the Angels were trailing.

So what do the Tigers do to protect their 1-run lead? Keider Montero gets an 0-2 count on the slumping carcass of a cleanup hitter, Jorge Soler. He then throws inside and hits him. The Angels, like the Tigers, got another runner on base. Unlike the Tigers, they did not cash them in.

Watching that inning brought me back a long way in time, to when I last played baseball. It was in a 30 and over men’s league. There was a wide disparity of talent. Some guys probably never played past high school. Some probably didn’t play past little league. A few were had played college ball at some level, and every now and then you come across someone who played a bit professionally. One day the pitcher you are facing might have topped out at 60 MPH, the next game you might see someone throwing in the upper 80s.

One day I stepped into the box against one of the hard throwers. Not the fastest guy I saw that summer, but plenty fast enough that I stood little chance. I don’t know his name, or where he topped out earlier in life. Anyway, he quickly got 2 strikes on me. I was completely overmatched. Then he let me off the hook. He tried to set me up by throwing the brushback. Took a glancing blow off the upper wrist and headed to first base. It probably wasn’t the most mature thing to do, but as I went to first I could not help but laugh at him. Not sure if he noticed or not. I had no chance against his fastball. All he had to do was throw another strike and I would have walked back to the bench. Instead, I was on first and probably stole second shortly after that.

I have never in my life complained about being hit by a pitch. I grew up watching Brian Downing and Don Baylor play. The HBP is just a way to first. I credit Baylor especially for demonstrating how to take a pitch. He did such a great job of turning his body on an inside pitch that he accomplished two things: 1. He made sure his head was turned away from the pitch and 2. He presented a bigger target for the ball.

Until this week though, I’ve never run the data. I know that hitters who go down 0-2 are at a huge disadvantage. But what if the brushback pitch (that does not hit you) turns a .170 hitter into a .120 hitter? Is there any intimidation effect? Maybe that would be worth the occasional HBP from the pitcher’s perspective.

Overall, after the count starts at 0-2 hitters hit 164/197/257 in 2026 games up to the last point where I had downloaded the data. They struck out 47 percent of the time.

What if the 3rd pitch was an inside pitch? To define that I looked for anything approximately 6 inches from the inside edge of the plate, regardless of whether it hit the batter, was swung at, or dodged and taken for a ball. Then I look at the final outcome of the PA.

When pitchers throw the brushback, the results show a batting line of 174/298/287. That’s over 100 points of OBP. While the BA and walk rate increase slightly, the odds of hitting the batter with a pitch are ten times higher. Do you gain any intimidation bonus? Doesn’t look like it as even the slugging percentage increases slightly.

Some of that could be small sample size, I’m just looking at pitches for one year. Maybe in a larger sample we’d see no significant increase to BA and SLG. But there is no evidence at all that a brushback pitch would lower either stat. The increase in OBP via the hit batter is so extreme that it almost certainly will show up in a larger sample.

So the message to pitchers is this: You have the batter down 0-2. You are in control. He is at a tremendous disadvantage. Don’t get cute. Don’t give him an easy way out. Don’t waste a pitch inside. Just throw your best out pitch right there.