Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports Like many other nerds, I have devoted a lot of time to slicing and dicing Baseball Savant’s new bat tracking data over the last few weeks. And like many other nerds, I’m not entirely sure how we’ll end up using this wealth of new information. More time, more data, and more…
I’m not as stridently anti-tanking as some people — in my youth, I was a Sixers blogger during The Process, so I can say from experience that rooting for a historically bad team has its moments — but there is one thing that bugs me about the Orioles and Astros and so on from the…
Max Fried hadn’t yet established himself when first interviewed for FanGraphs in April 2018. Despite being drafted highly, he had limited big league experience. Fast forward to today, Fried is considered one of the best pitchers in baseball. He has an impressive win-loss record and strong pitching stats since 2019. Additionally, in 2021, he excelled…
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. On Tuesday, I wrote about how the Brewers have been able to leverage largely unheralded depth into an excellent start to their season. In a conversation…
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the matchups between Paul Skenes and Shohei Ohtani, Skenes’s skills and weaknesses on the mound and as a showman, the excitement level of different types of strikes, and more. They also talk about Aroldis Chapman’s ability to maintain high pitch speeds, whether the White Sox should be deterred from…
(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) The New York Yankees hit the jackpot with Aaron Judge. When they drafted him in 2013, they expected him to develop, but probably not to this extent. He is now, easily, a top-two hitter in the game and a true star in MLB’s biggest market. Not only that, but he…
(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is a privileged man. He not only manages an elite team and has a seemingly endless budget at his disposal, but he gets to manage and watch one of the all-time best in Shohei Ohtani. In a chat with Colin Cowherd, Roberts –…
(Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images) To be the best, you have to prepare like the best. That’s certainly what Pittsburgh Pirates rising star Paul Skenes has been doing. After 27 innings in the majors, the former No. 1 overall draft pick in 2023 is sporting a cool 3.00 ERA, with six walks and 38 strikeouts….
(Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images) The Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets are living different realities at the moment. The former boasts the best record in MLB with 44 wins against just 19 losses: only the New York Yankees can match that as of Thursday afternoon. Philadelphia is full of star-level position players…
(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) Before the start of the season, if you were asked to name the three best and most prominent pitchers two months into the campaign, you probably would have mentioned the likes of Blake Snell, Gerrit Cole, Kevin Gausman, and other proven starters. But Gausman has been bad, Cole has been…
