FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: August 8, 2026

Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images

On Friday, the Boston Globe ran a story by Red Sox beat writer Alex Speier on the concept of momentum. I can hear the collective groans of our Members now. Haven’t we gone over this enough? We’ve already established that there’s no such thing as momentum! Or, if there is, its effect is minimal. Our readers would be the first to point out that the month-and-a-half long surge up in Boston is mostly a matter of a talented, drastically underperforming Sox team experiencing some serious positive regression, bringing its overall record back up to about where we expected it to be all along. I get that, of course. We cannot conclusively prove the effect of momentum in baseball — and it’s not for lack of trying — and so therefore cannot definitively say that it exists. Yet when it comes to the Big Mo, a palpable feeling rather than a tangible metric, I tend to subscribe to what I call the Robert Graysmith Theory: Just because you can’t prove it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

What’s interesting about Speier’s piece is that he, along with Globe staffers Julian Benbow and Daigo Fujiwara-Smith, looked for data to support the impact of momentum on winning and losing streaks. Speier, an analytically savvy writer, said in his Bluesky post sharing the story that he “was skeptical” that their search would lead to anything. Instead, he was astonished to learn that, as he writes in the story, “A Globe analysis of Retrosheet data that includes the outcome of every MLB game from 1901 through 2025 revealed a striking pattern: The longer a winning streak lasts, the higher a team’s winning percentage in the next game.” The inverse is true for losing streaks. Speier mentions several factors unrelated to momentum that help to explain why “baseball streaks tend to be somewhat self-sustaining,” most notably that team quality probably plays a major role in enduring stretches of winning or losing. That alone is enough of a reason to maintain any skepticism you may have toward the idea of momentum. But at the same time, we should acknowledge that many players believe in the power of momentum, and if that belief influences how they feel, and how they feel contributes to how they perform, then it stands to reason that momentum — or at least, their belief in momentum — has at least some impact on performance.

That’s the last we’ll be discussing momentum here, though I’d encourage you to read the entirety of Speier’s story after you’ve finished reading this mailbag. Instead, today we’ll be answering your questions on players to be named later, the teams that most improved (or diminished) their 2027 playoff odds with their moves at this season’s trade deadline, and where Pete Crow-Armstrong would stack up on the five-star catches leaderboard if we had Statcast data going back through baseball’s history. But before we do, 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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Hello Mailbag!

The recent trade deadline has me wondering about player(s) to be named later. To the best of my understanding, PTBNL are included in trades for two reasons:

1) To circumvent MLB’s rule on trading players that have been drafted less than a year ago.

2) To allow the team trading for the PTBNL to pick a player from an agreed upon list of players at a later date.

Is my understanding correct? Also, have there ever been any disputes among trading partners about the team that still possesses a potential PTBNL tampering with that player’s development in an effort to influence the team’s decision about who the actual PTBNL will be?

Also, which PTBNL has gone on to have the best career? I think I remember Trea Turner being a PTBNL, and I would think his career would be pretty hard to beat.

Sorry for the multi-part question. If you want to shorten it or only answer a part of it, I totally understand.

Thanks in advance,
Ryan

Michael Baumann: Greetings, Ryan. You’ve more or less nailed it. When you see a player to be named later in a trade, it’s because the trade has to be made before some aspect of the transaction can be completed. Most often, it’s to fudge one of the players in the return: the Rays trade Smith to the Cardinals, but they can’t decide if they want Johnson or Gomez in return…well, the Cardinals need Smith now, so let’s just toss a PTBNL label on it and figure things out later.

On four occasions in baseball history — the first involving Harry Chiti of the 1962 Mets, in an incident recounted in Ken Burns’ Baseball — trade partners have resolved a PTBNL situation by returning the player to his original team. Recently, I answered a question about soccer-style loans in baseball; technically, two teams could manipulate the PTBNL to work out a loan of up to six months, though I imagine anyone who tried this would call down the righteous and terrible fury of the commissioner on themselves.

A couple weeks ago, I was teaching my friend’s second grader how to play chess. Chess is an incredibly simple game, but it’s got a few sneaky rules and exceptions. It was harder than I’d realized to stay on top of the rules for how a pawn moves: one space forward only, unless it’s the first move or the pawn is taking another piece. MLB’s transaction rules are like that.

You can’t trade players who are on the injured list, for instance, without express permission from the commissioner. A team might not have 40-man roster space to take on a player at the moment of the trade, and could use a PTBNL as a placeholder until one opens up.

You mentioned Trea Turner. We think of PTBNLs (or PsTBNL, for those of us who haven’t given up hope on “RsBI”) as throw-ins, but in 2014, Turner was a huge prospect, the no. 13 pick in the most recent draft. The Padres couldn’t trade him until he’d been in the pros for a year, so they added him as a PTBNL in a three-team trade in December 2014. There was a 14-day window between the point where Turner became trade-eligible and the six-month deadline to name the PTBNL, and the Padres sent Turner to Washington then.

Both of the rules that made that possible were changed before the Turner deal was even finalized. Now, players are eligible to be traded after the World Series in the year they were drafted, and draftees can’t be the PTBNL in trades made before that point.

Before they changed that rule, Turner spent most of an offseason and all of spring training, plus two months in Double-A, playing for an organization that had no incentive to develop him. Turner was such a significant prospect, and had already been widely reported to be in the deal, so this wasn’t a situation where the Nats could’ve gone and asked for Austin Hedges if the Padres had intentionally screwed with Turner before the trade was finalized.

This was 18 months before the Padres failed to disclose Colin Rea’s elbow issue ahead of a trade with the Marlins, which ultimately ended up nullifying the part of the deal that would’ve netted San Diego Luis Castillo; A.J. Preller was later suspended for pulling a similar maneuver when trading Drew Pomeranz to the Red Sox. I don’t know if anyone in the Padres’ front office at the time suggested benching Turner, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the idea had come up.

As it was, Turner played 58 out of a possible 60 games for San Antonio before his trade went through. He hit .322 while he was there, and got his first taste of major league action with the Nationals before the end of the year. I think we can all agree that things turned out quite well for both Turner and the Nationals.

In the end, so much of a GM’s job involves interpersonal relationships and credibility that I’m skeptical that anyone would go out of their way to screw with a PTBNL’s development. You’d have to get a number of front office staffers and minor league coaches on board with the idea, which is unethical not just because it’s dishonest, but because it’d intentionally sabotage the player’s development.

The reputational damage would be extreme: How do you get trade partners to trust you again? How do you convince free agents or draft picks that you’ll do right by them if they sign? And not just for the player, but for the GM and coaches, all of whom would presumably be interviewing for other jobs in baseball at some point in their careers. It’s just not worth keeping the right Low-A fastball/slider guy. Plus, if the point is to sneakily keep a player you’re excited about, you’d have to be really confident you could undo the damage you’ve done to him. Otherwise, why bother?

As for the last part of the question: Who’s the best PTBNL in baseball history? Fortunately, you’re not the first person to ask that question — this was a reasonably popular listicle premise in the 2010s.

The best player who ever got PTBNL’d was probably Shoeless Joe Jackson, which barely counts because he got traded in 1910, before farm systems and MLB Trade Rumors had even been invented. That was basically the Bronze Age.

Since then, it’s rare for a PTBNL to become a star, so much so that you’ll frequently find the likes of Scott Brosius and Marco Scutaro on such lists, which stretches the definition of “star” quite a bit in my opinion.

But since 1990, all of these guys were PTBNLs with less than a year of major league experience, and went on to make multiple All-Star teams and compile at least 25 career WAR. You’ve got a Hall of Famer, a couple Cy Young finalists, and an excuse to mention Hideki Irabu:

Significant Players to Be Named Later Since 1990

Name	Year	Old Team	New Team	Traded for	G	wRC+/ERA-	WAR
David Ortiz	1996	SEA	MIN	Dave Hollins	2408	140	51.0
Trea Turner	2015	SDP	WSN	Steven Souza Jr.	1378	120	48.6
Moises Alou	1990	PIT	MON	Zane Smith	1942	129	47.7
Jason Schmidt	1996	ATL	PIT	Denny Neagle	323	92	37.5
Gio Gonzalez	2005	CHW	PHI	Jim Thome	344	91	32.2
Michael Brantley	2008	MIL	CLE	CC Sabathia	1445	117	28.5
Ted Lilly	2000	MON	NYY	Hideki Irabu	356	95	26.5

The best PTBNL might end up being Turner, who’s probably a season from passing Ortiz in career WAR and, in contrast to Shoeless Joe, was never banned from baseball for throwing a World Series. I’m less high on Ortiz’s playing career than the consensus, so if I had to be totally honest I might override the WAR total and say Turner’s there already. But if you don’t want to get yelled at, the answer for the best PTBNL in baseball history is Big Papi.

So there you go, Ryan: An even more verbose response to your question. I should mention that you’ve inspired me. When Matt comes calling next week, I’m going to see if I can get away with promising him a mailbag response to be filed later.

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At the trade deadline, we hear a lot about teams not wanting to fully tear it down, but instead “retool” to try and compete in the following season. Now that the 2026 deadline has passed, I’m curious to know which team was the “best” at retooling this year. In other words, of the teams that sold at this year’s deadline, which one improved its 2027 playoff odds the most via the trades it made, based on player projections for next season (assuming there’s a full season)? On the flip side, which buyers leveraged their future and hurt their 2027 playoff odds the most?

Thanks in advance!

Raj M.

Dan Szymborski: Playoff probabilities are a little indirect for this question, since a lot more goes into the playoff odds than just the team itself. So to really get an idea of how the 2027 retoolers did, I’m going with a more direct measure: the teams that added the most projected wins in 2027.

Five teams gained at least a win in the 2027 projections after the August 3 deadline. The Red Sox gained 3.6 wins thanks to the fact that their additions are sticking around past the end of the 2026 season. Now, that came with a far greater prospect cost than we saw with some other clubs, but that’s more of a future problem than a 2027 one. Adley Rutschman is a huge add, even with him performing below the high of his first few seasons, and Erik Miller will be fine in the bullpen. While Curtis Mead-for-Connelly Early is a challenge trade, ZiPS thinks that both teams gained wins from it. The Sox have better replacements for Early in-house than Mead, while just the opposite is true for the Nats.

For their part, the Blue Jays netted 3.0 wins. Kevin Gausman and Daulton Varsho were unsigned past this season, and the Jays landed José Soriano, Josh Smith, and Spencer Arrighetti, all of whom have positive 2027 value, though I’ll note that this might have shaken out differently if we were talking about 2028 because of Arjun Nimmala. Continuing the pattern of AL East teams making acquisitions that go past this winter, next up are the Yankees at 2.8 wins, with both Luis García Jr. and Heliot Ramos under team control past this year.

After that come the Tigers at 1.5 wins thanks to the upside of both Zyhir Hope and River Ryan. Finally, the Rays check in at 1.3 wins since they’ll retain Liam Hicks and Tyler Wells. ZiPS also still hasn’t completely soured on Jack Suwinski, but the gain there is cancelled out by the fact that the computer thinks that the traded-away Michael Forret could step into a rotation right now.

And before I’m accused of building in an AL East bias, remember, I’m from Baltimore, and ZiPS has the O’s losing the most 2027 wins at -3.6. While Samuel Basallo will get a lot more time at catcher, his bat was already projected to be in the lineup somewhere, and both Johnathan Rodríguez and Wells had positive projections for 2027. ZiPS still sees Dean Kremer as a useful innings-eater who is better than his 2026, but they get that value back from the aforementioned Forret.

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Hey FanGraphs,

Pete Crow-Armstrong recently broke the record for the most five-star catches in the Statcast era with 33. He set that record in less than half the innings played by the now-second-place Kevin Kiermaier.

That naturally got me wondering: Who’s the all-time leader in five-star catches, going back before the Statcast era? Is PCA the true record holder?

Names that immediately come to mind for me include Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Ichiro Suzuki, and Jim Edmonds.

Thanks,
Jacob Myers

Davy Andrews: I think your first guess is right on the money, Jacob. Willie Mays is the obvious frontrunner here. He just made so many more catches than anyone else. Indeed, he leads all outfielders with 7,123 putouts; only four other players are within 1,400 putouts of that total. And chances are a huge, huge part of the equation here. Five-star opportunities don’t come around all that often. However, I want to tweak our data set slightly, because it’s not just about total chances.

Five-star catches are a young man’s game. Plenty of outfielders rack up great defensive numbers late in their career, but five-star catches specifically require excellent jumps and excellent speed. You just can’t make them without that speed, and speed fades. Even Keiermaier never put up more than one five-star catch in a season after the age of 31. Now, Keiermaier dealt with a lot of injuries, which likely sapped his speed some, and he retired after his age-34 season. Maybe other players held onto their speed a little longer. Let’s cut off our leaderboard after each player’s age-33 season, at which point few, if any, would still be fast enough to be racking up five-star catches. If we only count putouts made before a player’s age-34 season, this is what the top 20 looks like:

Outfield Putouts Before Age-34 Season

Rk	Name	PO		Rk	Name	PO
1	Richie Ashburn	5769		11	Ken Griffey Jr.	4391
2	Willie Mays	4927		12	Adam Jones	4272
3	Andruw Jones	4789		13	Mickey Mantle	4262
4	Max Carey	4737		14	Al Kaline	4262
5	Tristram Speaker	4721		15	Willie Wilson	4227
6	Chet Lemon	4586		16	Hank Aaron	4212
7	Vada Pinson	4542		17	Ty Cobb	4178
8	Rickey Henderson	4498		18	Carlos Beltrán	4135
9	Lloyd Waner	4484		19	Paul Blair	4130
10	Willie Davis	4431		20	Garry Maddox	4129

Richie Ashburn has absolutely vaulted by Mays. He’s way, way out in front. However, Total Zone says that Ashburn wasn’t a particularly good defender for his first several years in the majors, while Mays was a star from the get-go. Although Ashburn ranks first in putouts by a huge mark, if we wander over to a chart of Defensive Value put up before a player’s age-34 season, he drops down to 21st. That matters, because in order to rack up five-star catches, you have to do everything right. You need the speed, but you also need the jumps and the positioning, and those things show up in the Defensive Value column. Andrew Jones is next on the putout list, and he’s a really strong contender. We know from DRS that he turned into a defensive pumpkin fairly early, in his age-30 season, which probably cost him a lot of five-star catch opportunities, but he was so, so good before that. He leads all outfielders in Defensive Value before a player’s age-34 season by a wild margin:

Outfielder Defensive Runs Before Age-34 Season

Rk	Name	Def		Rk	Name	Def
1	Andruw Jones	283.5		12	Curt Flood	98.8
2	Paul Blair	160.9		13	Darin Erstad	91.4
3	Devon White	154.7		14	Lance Johnson	90.1
4	Willie Mays	146		15	Garry Maddox	89.3
5	Kenny Lofton	135.5		16	Brian Jordan	84.8
6	Jim Piersall	128.1		17	Ken Griffey Jr.	84.4
7	Mike Cameron	122.1		18	Lorenzo Cain	84.1
8	Barry Bonds	113.8		19	Honus Wagner	83.4
9	Jesse Barfield	104.3		20	Carlos Beltrán	83.2
10	Kevin Kiermaier	104.1		21	Richie Ashburn	82.6
11	Willie Davis	102.7		22	Carlos Gómez	79.3

This breakdown probably hurts Mays some, because the numbers say he was still an elite defender through his age-35 season, and we just threw out two of those campaigns. I’m going to throw out Tris Speaker and Max Carey myself, on the perhaps unfair assumption that elite speed meant something different in 1910 than it did when the Statcast team set its definition of a five-star catch. Rickey Henderson played forever and was obviously known for his blazing speed, but he wasn’t really known for his defense. He only turned it into one Gold Glove, and he’s all the way down at 65 on our Defensive Value leaderboard (though maybe some of that is due to a defensive position penalty on account of him playing left field). Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Cameron are particularly fun names, and there’s Keiermaier on the list too.

Putting these two tables together, Jones seems like the obvious favorite, though Mays is a good contender as well, and we shouldn’t overlook Ashburn. Regardless, I want to remind you that Crow-Armstrong isn’t even done with his age-24 season yet, and he already ranks 51st in all-time, under-age-34 outfield Defensive Value, with 53.3 defensive runs. As I’ve written a couple times before, the ever-improving level of outfield defense means that he’s putting up those defensive numbers based on much tougher grading criteria than Mays and even Jones. He’s absolutely blown by the previous Statcast era leader in five-star catches already, and he’s got at least seven more years to rack up more of them. Maybe PCA doesn’t have the all-time title yet, but I think he’ll have it real soon.

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