The Kansas City Royals ended their seven-game losing streak with a win last night, barely holding onto their Wild Card spot. Despite ending the losing streak, the Royals struggled to secure the win, leaving nine runners on base in the first four innings. A scoreless game went into extra innings, and the Royals finally scored,…
John Froschauer-Imagn Images Which characteristics cause a team to either excel or struggle in the postseason? It’s a long-standing debate, and most baseball fans have a preferred theory. Some think it’s having an ace. Others think good contact hitting, or a team’s momentum, is what pushes a club over the top. Some people — the…
Even if you’re not a Braves fan, you probably know the rough contours of what’s gone down for them this season. The preseason World Series favorites have had horrid injury luck all year. The reigning MVP, Ronald Acuña Jr., scuffled for 50 games before tearing his ACL. Spencer Strider blew out his elbow. Austin Riley…
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss Meg’s return from vacation, Corbin Burnes’s resurgence with his cutter, the demotion of CJ Abrams, the performance of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, the firing of Reds manager David Bell, the Tigers promoting Jackson Jobe, Shota Imanaga’s post-NPB success, teams not using injuries as an excuse, Charlie Blackmon’s career…
Last Friday and Saturday, the Cincinnati Reds routed the Pittsburgh Pirates in back-to-back games by a combined score of 15-4. The Reds were 74-80 when the Pirates came to town for the three-game series, and their chances of finishing above .500 and matching last year’s 82-80 record were slim, but they kept those hopes alive…
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated…
Intern, Baseball Analytics Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York Summary: The New York Mets are seeking an intern in our Baseball Analytics Department for the summer of 2025. During the summer, the Intern will build, test, and present statistical models to inform the decision-making of our Baseball Operations department. This position requires strong background…
I feel a little bad for Shota Imanaga. The Cubs left-hander is sixth among qualified starters in ERA and ninth in K-BB%. He’s thrown 173 1/3 innings, which is a bunch by modern standards, and while we don’t put much probative value in pitcher record in this day and age, Imanaga is still 15-3 for…
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love. If you’ve read even a couple installments of this column, you know that roster changes are my favorite things in baseball. Free agents, trades, extensions, IL…
(Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images) Coming into the 2024 NFL regular season, the talk of the NFL in terms of rookies set to play on the professional level was all about the six quarterbacks that were taken in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft, which was a league record. The bulk of that…
