FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: May 9, 2026

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

One of my biggest regrets in the years I’ve been covering baseball is that I never got John Sterling’s list. You see, in addition to our mutual love of baseball, Sterling shared my appreciation for film noir. I don’t remember how it came up, but I learned of Sterling’s noir kick in the summer of 2023, when Yankees beat writer Chris Kirschner, of The Athletic, suggested I talk to the longtime Yankees radio broadcaster about it. I had never met Sterling before, but the next day in the Yankee Stadium press box dining room, I introduced myself. He was so excited to know that this 27-year-old kid also loved noir, and he immediately asked me what my favorites were. Right away, I rattled off In a Lonely Place, Out of the Past, and Double Indemnity, which looking back on it, must have made me seem like a noir novice, as if I said my three favorite Springsteen songs were “Born to Run,” “Born in the USA,” and “Dancing in the Dark.” But Sterling didn’t think anything of it. Or if he did, he didn’t show it. Instead, his face lit up, and in his baritone voice, he beamed about Bogart and Mitchum and MacMurray. We chatted for a few minutes before I asked him for his recommendations. He had to get back to the booth — it was almost game time — but he told me to come find him next homestand and he’d make a list for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t see him for another month or so, and when I did, I didn’t ask him for the list. We didn’t really know each other, and I didn’t want to bother him with something so trivial. He retired early the next season.

Growing up a Yankees fan from the Hudson Valley, I listened to Sterling for most of my life. His voice is woven into the fabric of my baseball fandom. It’s not a stretch to say that all those years spent listening to him on the radio contributed to my becoming a baseball writer. And yet, when I saw the news that Sterling had died on Monday at age 87, the first thing I thought about was the brief time we spent talking about film noir in front of the press box coffee machine that summer day in 2023. I never got the list, but I did get a wonderful memory. I’ll cherish it forever.

There’s no natural transition to the mailbag from there, so let’s just get to it. This week, we’ll be answering your questions about Austin Hedges’ unexpected hot start at the plate, the most efficient pitchers on a per-pitch basis, teams that register a .500 OBP in a game, and the largest percentage of career stolen bases coming in the shortest span of time. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com.

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Dear FanGraphs team,

Austin Hedges is having a breakout offensive season — yes, Austin Hedges. Yes, I’ve seen the BABIP, but in his case, the fact that he’s even putting balls in play is a miracle. This got me wondering: Who is the worst hitter of all-time with a minimum of 2,500 plate appearances (roughly the number Hedges has logged)? Is Hedges on the short list?

Thanks!

– Kevin S.

Austin Hedges is one of my favorite players because he has somehow made a career out of two things and two things only: Great defense and immaculate vibes. The man known as Hog — incredible nickname, it must be said — has played parts of 12 seasons in the big leagues, and he’s on track to reach 10 years of service time before the end of the 2026 campaign. But also, Hedges is an abysmal hitter. You know that, I know that — everybody reading this knows that. And yet, just like the 2011 Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill, Hedges’ performance at the plate is even worse than you remember it. Here are his offensive numbers, by season and for his career, entering play Friday:

Austin Hedges Offense

Year	Team	PA	AB	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BB%	K%	wRC+
2015	SDP	152	137	3	.168	.215	.248	.463	5.3	25.0	26
2016	SDP	26	24	0	.125	.154	.167	.321	0.0	26.9	-19
2017	SDP	417	387	18	.214	.262	.398	.660	5.5	29.3	69
2018	SDP	326	303	14	.231	.282	.429	.711	6.4	27.6	90
2019	SDP	347	312	11	.176	.252	.311	.563	7.8	31.4	48
2020	SDP/CLE	83	69	3	.145	.231	.290	.521	7.2	27.7	45
2021	CLE	312	286	10	.178	.220	.308	.527	4.8	27.9	42
2022	CLE	338	294	7	.163	.241	.248	.489	7.4	23.1	43
2023	PIT/TEX	212	185	1	.184	.234	.227	.461	5.2	22.2	24
2024	CLE	146	132	2	.152	.203	.220	.422	4.1	34.2	20
2025	CLE	180	155	5	.161	.250	.277	.527	10.0	23.9	51
2026	CLE	50	45	1	.311	.360	.367	.827	8.0	20.0	130
Career	—	2589	2329	75	.187	.246	.316	.562	6.3	27.2	51

With a 51 wRC+, Hedges is on the short list for worst hitter ever among players with at least 2,500 plate appearances, but from a production standpoint, he’s nowhere near the worst. That distinction belongs to mailbag regular Bill Bergen, whose 22 wRC+ is so bad that you’d have to double it before getting to the second-worst hitter, Rafael Belliard. Hedges doesn’t even rank among the five worst hitters by wRC+, at least at the moment anyway. His hot start to 2026 increased his lifetime wRC+ by one point, moving him from fifth to seventh on our worst hitters list:

Worst Hitters Ever

Name	Years	PA	AB	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wRC+	WAR
Bill Bergen	11	3228	3028	2	.170	.194	.201	.395	22	-16.2
Rafael Belliard	17	2524	2301	2	.221	.270	.259	.530	44	-1.2
Jeff Mathis	17	3015	2718	53	.194	.252	.299	.551	45	3.3
Hal Lanier	10	3940	3703	8	.228	.255	.275	.529	49	-0.8
Tommy Thevenow	15	4484	4164	2	.247	.285	.294	.579	51	-5.6
Bobby Wine	12	3467	3172	30	.215	.264	.286	.550	51	-1.2
Austin Hedges	12	2589	2329	75	.187	.246	.316	.562	51	9.4
Doug Flynn	11	4085	3853	7	.238	.266	.294	.560	52	-8.4
Juan Castro	17	2849	2627	36	.229	.268	.327	.595	52	-6.2
Rey Ordonez	9	3407	3115	12	.246	.289	.310	.600	54	2.3

Minimum 2,500 PA

I included WAR in the table above because, as you’ll see, Hedges is by far the best overall player among these terrible batters. In fact, you’d have to go all the way down to the 30th-worst hitter to find a player with more WAR. That would be Jose Molina, who retired with a career 64 wRC+ and 19.9 WAR.

Anyway, if you scroll back up to the first table above, with Hedges’ seasonal and career numbers, you’ll see that through his first 16 games and 50 plate appearances this season, Hog is going wild with the lumber. To bring back the Jack and Jill analogy, this season is Hedges’ Dunkaccino Commercial — the one unexpected stretch of greatness within an overall shield-your-eyes-bad production:

Alas, we know this moment of glory isn’t likely to last. Hedges didn’t suddenly become an elite hitter at age 33. Realistically, he didn’t become a good hitter or an average hitter at age 33, either. I doubt he even became a slightly below-average hitter. But the fascinating thing about Hedges is that he’s valuable to the Guardians even as one of the worst hitters ever. And if he’s found a way to be just a little bit better than that extremely low bar, he and Cleveland should consider it a win.

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Hi FanGraphs,

Love reading the weekly mailbag. My question today is about quick-outs relievers. As a groundball pitcher who throws a lot of strikes, I feel like Tim Hill is always getting outs on as few pitches as I’ve ever seen. I mostly watch Yankee games, so possibly my view of him is skewed. It made me curious, what pitchers are the most efficient on a per-pitch basis? Similar to the fewest IP-to-Wins question from a two weeks ago, which pitchers have recorded the most outs on the fewest pitches?

Thanks,
Pat

Michael Baumann: Greetings, Pat. As luck would have it, just this morning I was noodling around our leaderboards, and was astonished to see how low Hill’s strikeout and walk rates had dropped: 11.8% and 3.7%, respectively. His TTO rate, as of Wednesday (when I’m writing this), was a measly 17.6%, which is the third lowest among qualified relievers. That’s roughly the same TTO% Burleigh Grimes produced in 1918, decades before the invention of the strikeout.

As to your specific question, I vividly remember making a chart of the pitchers who use the fewest pitches per out and per batter for an article at some point in the past. But I have no idea when, and a quick shuffle through my archive didn’t turn anything up. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. At any rate, this isn’t an especially difficult question to answer.

I made a quick custom leaderboard that showed the total number of strikes, innings, and batters faced for anyone with at least 20 innings pitched this year, did some tinkering in Excel… and then realized that Hill wasn’t on it, because as I’m writing, he’s only thrown 14 1/3 innings. OK, let’s do the same thing with a 10-inning minimum.

And Pat, my dear friend, I think you will be quite gratified to learn who is the most efficient pitcher in baseball so far this year, by both pitches per out and pitches per batters faced.

The Most Efficient Pitchers in Baseball

By Pitches Per Out
Name	Team	Pitches/Out	Pitches/BF	Pitches	TBF	Outs	IP
Tim Hill	NYY	3.72	3.14	160	51	43	14 1/3
Ryan Thompson	ARI	4.33	3.20	173	54	40	13 1/3
Joel Kuhnel	ATH	4.18	3.24	159	49	38	12 2/3
Drew Pomeranz	LAA	5.15	3.25	211	65	41	13 2/3
Tyler Rogers	TOR	4.40	3.28	220	67	50	16 2/3
Jakob Junis	TEX	4.24	3.36	195	58	46	15 1/3
Bryan Woo	SEA	4.61	3.42	567	166	123	41
Zack Littell	WSN	5.30	3.43	514	150	97	32 1/3
Brandon Woodruff	MIL	4.61	3.43	415	121	90	30
Jose A. Ferrer	SEA	5.19	3.46	280	81	54	18
By Pitches Per Batter Faced
Name	Team	Pitches/Out	Pitches/BF	Pitches	TBF	Outs	IP
Tim Hill	NYY	3.72	3.14	160	51	43	14 1/3
Joel Kuhnel	ATH	4.18	3.24	159	49	38	12 2/3
John King	MIA	4.23	3.55	199	56	47	15 2/3
Jakob Junis	TEX	4.24	3.36	195	58	46	15 1/3
Ryan Thompson	ARI	4.33	3.20	173	54	40	13 1/3
Matt Brash	SEA	4.35	3.89	148	38	34	11 1/3
Rico Garcia	BAL	4.38	3.89	210	54	48	16
Tyler Rogers	TOR	4.40	3.28	220	67	50	16 2/3
Brant Hurter	DET	4.41	3.50	238	68	54	18
Yennier Cano	BAL	4.47	3.74	161	43	36	12

Through 5/5, minimum 10 IP

Hill is not only the most efficient pitcher in the league, he’s the most efficient pitcher in the league by a massive margin, if you go by pitches per out. It’s not just Yankee bias, Pat. To hell with the other 29 teams — you already know everything you need to know from watching the Yankees.

You have no idea how much I envy you, Pat. So much of this job is checking eye test stuff against the data, and it’s not every day that you turn out to be not only right, but emphatically right.

Because I already made this leaderboard, let’s flip it upside-down and see who the least efficient pitchers are.

The Least Efficient Pitchers in Baseball

By Pitches Per Out
Name	Team	Pitches/Out	Pitches/BF	Pitches	TBF	Outs	IP
Ryne Stanek	STL	7.69	4.55	346	76	45	15
Bryan Abreu	HOU	7.14	4.06	264	65	37	12 1/3
Tanner Banks	PHI	6.95	3.97	278	70	40	13 1/3
Erik Miller	SFG	6.91	4.90	235	48	34	11 1/3
Enmanuel De Jesus	DET	6.89	3.89	241	62	35	11 2/3
Peyton Pallette	CLE	6.84	4.49	301	67	44	14 2/3
Jack Flaherty	DET	6.82	4.21	593	141	87	29
Ryan Weiss	HOU	6.79	4.05	530	131	78	26
Cole Wilcox	SEA	6.75	3.86	270	70	40	13 1/3
Anthony Kay	CHW	6.74	4.24	607	143	90	30
By Pitches Per Batter Faced
Name	Team	Pitches/Out	Pitches/BF	Pitches	TBF	Outs	IP
Erik Miller	SFG	6.91	4.90	235	48	34	11 1/3
Connor Prielipp	MIN	6.14	4.61	258	56	42	14
Ryne Stanek	STL	7.69	4.55	346	76	45	15
Louis Varland	TOR	5.70	4.51	302	67	53	17 2/3
Peyton Pallette	CLE	6.84	4.49	301	67	44	14 2/3
Cade Smith	CLE	6.35	4.49	292	65	46	15 1/3
Cal Quantrill	TEX	5.93	4.45	178	40	30	10
Will Vest	DET	6.57	4.42	230	52	35	11 2/3
Lucas Erceg	KCR	5.93	4.40	273	62	46	15 1/3
Evan Sisk	PIT	6.21	4.40	242	55	39	13

Through 5/5, minimum 10 IP

Ugh. Ryne Stanek and Erik Miller, making us sit through an extra two or three pitches per out. Life is short, fellas. Be more like Tim Hill.

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Dear FanGraphs team,

First-time caller, long-time fan. Last Saturday, during their 17-7 win over the Reds, the Pirates’ offense got on base via a walk or hit more times (28) than the number of outs they made (24). How often do teams register an OBP of over .500 in a single game? Aside from last Saturday’s game, when was the last time it happened?

— Matt D.

Jon Becker: Howdy, Matt! My gut reaction to your question was “a .500 OBP in a single game for a team is impressive, but I bet it’s more common than you’d think.” And thanks to it being an easy search on Stathead, I didn’t have to write a single line of code to find the answer, unlike most of the mailbag questions Matt Martell sends my way!

That Reds-Pirates game on May 2 was the first such instance in… an entire week. And it’s already the 12th such game of the season:

.500+ OBP Team Games, 2026

Team	Date	OBP	Opp	Result	PA	H	BB	HBP
PIT	5/2/26	.574	CIN	W, 17-7	54	19	11	1
KCR	4/25/26	.563	LAA	W, 12-1	48	15	10	2
BAL	4/24/26	.500	BOS	W, 10-3	44	20	2	0
ARI	4/22/26	.500	CHW	W, 11-7	44	16	6	0
CHC	4/21/26	.500	PHI	W, 7-4	48	12	10	2
PIT	4/13/26	.500	WSN	W, 16-5	50	16	7	2
ATL	4/12/26	.512	CLE	W, 13-1	43	19	2	1
SDP	4/12/26	.500	COL	W, 7-2	38	10	6	2
ATH	4/5/26	.510	HOU	W, 12-10 (10)	49	16	9	0
HOU	4/4/26	.582	ATH	W, 11-0	55	18	13	1
KCR	4/1/26	.500	MIN	W, 13-9	44	15	5	2
MIL	3/26/26	.512	CHW	W, 14-2	45	12	10	0

Source: Baseball Reference

Unsurprisingly, getting on base in half of your plate appearances is a pretty good way to guarantee a win. The last time a team lost when getting on base half the time was on August 1 of last season, when the Pirates, who led 9-1 after the first inning and 16-10 after seven innings, reached base 28 times in 54 plate appearances while falling in ridiculous fashion to the Rockies. That’s partly because Colorado also registered an on-base percentage above .500 for the game, reaching 27 times in 52 trips to the plate. The last instance of a team losing such a game without its opponent also reaching base half the time was August 28, 2024, when the Pirates (again!) lost to the Cubs, 14-10. The Pirates were also up big in that game, leading 10-5 heading into the seventh inning. As you might’ve guessed, the Cubs were rolling in that game, too, but they reached base at a mere .469 clip.

Let’s end with a summary of the 20 seasons with the most games, league-wide, in which a team got on base in more than half of its plate appearances:

Most Team Games With a .500+ OBP

Season	Games	W	L	W-L%
1925	127	119	8	.937
2000	121	116	5	.959
1999	117	110	7	.940
1930	112	104	8	.929
1927	104	98	6	.942
1922	103	98	5	.951
1921	102	100	2	.980
1929	100	88	10	.890
1996	100	97	3	.970
1924	99	93	6	.939
1928	96	95	1	.990
1920	94	90	4	.957
1936	91	89	2	.978
1923	90	86	4	.956
1926	87	81	6	.931
2007	87	87	0	1.000
1899	86	80	5	.936
1995	85	80	5	.941
1997	84	82	2	.976

Source: Baseball Reference

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Hi again and happy May the Fourth to all who celebrate. I feel like Sarah Langs’ birthday, and with it the chance to support project ALS, should get acknowledged, so here’s a question related to one of her Stats of the Week columns at MLB.com. She noted that Elly De La Cruz “became the seventh player with at least 10 home runs and eight stolen bases before his team’s 30th game of a season since the modern SB rule was adopted (1898).” That isn’t especially interesting to me, but the list of others sure is: “He joined 2002 Vladimir Guerrero, 1997 Larry Walker, 1996 Barry Bonds, 1995 Mo Vaughn, 1987 Eric Davis and 1922 Ken Williams.”

Mo Vaughn? That Mo Vaughn? Alongside power-speed combos like Bonds and Davis? I see Vaughn has 6,410 plate appearances in his career with 30 stolen bases. Eight of those 30 steals came in one month! I have no memory of the month where Mo Vaughn randomly decided to become a huge (literally) stolen base threat, but that has to be some sort of record for largest percentage of a career’s steals coming in the shortest span of time, right? (Among players with X numbers of PA and Y numbers of steals in a career, of course…)

— “Transmission”

Ben Clemens: What a small world! I too saw that column and thought Mo Vaughn looked out of place on it. But I didn’t think to actually do the work to figure out the answer, so I just laughed a little about the thought of Mo Vaughn stealing bases and then moved on. As it turns out, this is something I can measure, though – at least back to 1974, the start of the play-by-play database I’m using.

I looked for players who racked up the highest percentage of their career stolen bases in a 30-day span. I started out by setting a minimum of 2,000 plate appearances and a one-steal minimum just to get a sense of what the league looks like, and I found that four different players got all of their steals in a month’s worth of play. Wilson Ramos, Daryle Ward, and Mike Redmond each stole one base in their career. Toby Hall swiped two – both between August 27 and September 25, 2001. He played in 686 games and accrued more than 2,500 career plate appearances – but only those two steals.

With a more reasonable minimum of 10 steals, Michael Barrett climbs to the top of the list. He swiped four bags in August 2002, and then only seven more in the remainder of his 11-year big league career. That’s 36.4% of his career steals in that month alone. I then set the minimum to 20 steals so that we could get Vaughn on the list:

Highest Percentage of Steals in 30 Days

Player	Career PA	Career Steals	Best Month	Best Month Steals	Percentage
Ramón Vázquez	2227	20	4/27/03-5/26/03	7	35.0%
Mo Vaughn	6410	30	4/30/95-5/29/95	8	26.7%
Angel Berroa	2807	50	8/24/03-9/22/03	12	24.0%
Frank Catalanotto	4292	45	7/30/01-8/28/01	10	22.2%
Tom Lampkin	2052	23	5/13/93-6/11/93	5	21.7%
Rey Ordonez	3407	28	4/1/97-4/30/97	6	21.4%
Keith Lockhart	2529	30	5/4/96-6/2/96	6	20.0%
John Valentin	4511	47	7/25/95-8/23/95	9	19.1%
Einar Díaz	2257	21	6/29/99-7/28/99	4	19.0%
Rick Ankiel	2115	21	3/28/11-4/26/11	4	19.0%

Notes: 1974-present, min. 2000 PA and 20 career SB

He’s no Ramón Vázquez, and that burst of success from Vázquez was particularly strange. He stole seven bases without getting caught in that span. For the rest of that year, he attempted six steals and was caught half the time. He only attempted 20 other steals the entire rest of his career, and was successful on just 13 of them. Whatever brief magic he captured vanished almost immediately. Vaughn was also perfect on his eight swipes in a single month, and was thrown out more frequently than he succeeded the rest of the year. It really does seem like he just caught a bolt of lightning for about one month.

A few shoutouts for miscellaneous accomplishments in this field: Berroa’s swiping 12 bags in a month is very impressive given how rarely he stole otherwise. Aaron Boone is the top of the leaderboard among players with 100 or more career steals; he stole 13 in July 2002. J.D. Drew gets an honorable mention, too; 13 bags from July 24 to August 22, 1999, and only 74 more across a lengthy, 46-WAR career that spanned from 1998 to 2011. You won’t see any good speed threats on this list, of course, but it’s pretty fun anyway.

Source

* This article was originally published here