Pitching Grips

David Dermer-Imagn Images The most exciting story as we approach the final week of the regular season is, at least by my accounting, the race for first place in the American League Central. On one side, we have the Chicago White Sox, a team that two years ago broke the modern record for the most losses in a season . Their outlook entering this season reflected their recent history. On Opening Day, Chicago had the worst playoff odds in the AL, with a 1.2% chance of making the playoffs, a 0.6% chance of winning the division, and a 0.1% chance of securing a first-round bye. And yet: The White Sox held at least a share of the division lead for 96 days this year, including a 73-day stretch from the start of play on July 5 until the end of the day Wednesday, when the Cleveland Guardians won the rubber match of a three-game set against the South Siders. Unlike Chicago, Cleveland has seven playoff berths, including six division titles, in the past 10 years. The Guardians are winning the same...

Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images On Tuesday night at Citi Field, the 2026 Mets season reached either a rather humiliating new low or a moment of catharsis, depending upon your point of view. With one out in the top of the ninth inning and the Mets clinging to a 3-2 lead over the Orioles, closer Kodai Senga left an 82.5-mph forkball over the plate, and Pete Alonso absolutely hit the fork out of it for a game-tying solo shot, the 300th home run of his career. The 31-year-old slugger punctuated the shot with an emphatic bat toss as the ball caromed off the face of the second deck in left-center field. While most opponent homers in such situations would elicit groans and boos, Alonso — who made his long-awaited return to Queens this week after signing a five-year, $155 million deal with the Orioles last December — instead received a standing ovation and made a curtain call. Though unorthodox, the response from the crowd was understandable. Alonso hit 264 home runs during his seven sea...

Ken Blaze-Imagn Images ZiPS has been generally one of the most positive projection systems in recent years regarding the Cleveland Guardians, but it has not been quite as excited about them when it comes to the postseason. The reason? Throughout the 2020s, their rotation has typically been thoroughly competent, but not very top-heavy, and the sprint of the playoffs is a different beast than the marathon of the regular season. This season, Cleveland is hovering around the .500 mark, but that’s no fault of the starting pitching, where there’s an argument that it has now developed two aces, an ingredient that’s an important part of a recipe for making a deep postseason run. One is Parker Messick , who previously dominated in the upper minors and seemingly didn’t need an adjustment period when he debuted with the Guardians last August. He’s emerged as one of the top pitchers in the AL , and he’ll almost definitely get downballot Cy Young votes this sea...

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports Back in August, the baseball savants at Baseball Savant bestowed upon us nerds yet another helping of Statcast data, this time in the form of a first base receiving leaderboard . Mike Petriello and Tom Tango wrote explainers describing how the new metric works and what exactly it means. Want to know who’s the best at scooping the ball, or corralling bouncers, or jumping up and snaring high throws and then landing on the bag before the runner? Now you can learn that information without having to watch all that bothersome baseball. In the simplest terms, receiving works like other Statcast metrics. Each throw to the first baseman has a catch probability, which then maps onto out expectancy. Say a throw has a catch probability of 75%. A first baseman who makes the play earns 25% of an out, while the first baseman who muffs it loses 75%. With this data, I can tell you that this season, Alec Burleson has been the best at this skill by a wide margin, while B...