Pitching Grips

Brett Davis and Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images Ozzie Albies , Austin Riley , and Freddie Freeman were vital contributors to the Braves when they won the 2021 World Series after getting as far as Game 7 of the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers the year before. Half a decade later, all three remain lineup staples — the first two in Atlanta, the third in Los Angeles — but as the postseason approaches, they rate as significant concerns for their respective teams. Though neither Albies nor Riley has turned 30 yet, both have not only had disappointing seasons, they appear to be multiple years into their decline phases, held in place by a combination of loyalty, track record, and long-term extensions. Freeman is 36 years old and a future Hall of Famer nearing the end of his 10th All-Star season, but while he would seem to be on firmer footing, he’s been dealing with a power outage that has coincided with a bout of patellar tendinitis in his right knee. He’s ...

Dylan Widger-Imagn Images Back from vacation, I returned to the field Monday for an Instructional League game between the Athletics and Rockies. How is the Instructional League different from the Bridge League, which I’ve covered previously? Both are unofficial leagues with a scrimmage-style setting, but “Instructs” take place after the rest of the minor league schedule has concluded, and typically includes a handful of select players from the various affiliates that the parent club wants to see more of, and maybe the best couple of guys from each org’s DSL squad. So, Bridge League (which takes place after the Draft and Complex League seasons are over but before the rest of the minors are done) features rookie-level players, new draftees, and rehabbers, while Instructional League has more select talent from several different minor league levels, and often includes Arizona Fall Leaguers who are getting ramped up for their looming slate. There isn’t the same kind of internal team v...

Aaron Doster-Imagn Images Ah, the end of September. For most teams in baseball, it’s a time for planning. Out of the race? It’s time to plan for the future. Playoff spot locked up? Time to plan for October. The Brewers are no exception. They’ve cruised to a postseason bye and look very likely to end the year as the top overall seed. But while the games the rest of the regular season aren’t of huge import to them, one decision is: What to do about Kyle Harrison . If Jacob Misiorowski hadn’t been the Brewers’ biggest story this year, Harrison would’ve been. After a few tough years in San Francisco and a rocky half-season in Boston, he arrived in Milwaukee in the Caleb Durbin trade and impressed right away. He struck out eight in his first start. He kicked it into overdrive by the end of April. An early summer slowdown notwithstanding, he had spectacular numbers at the All-Star break, and I was surprised he missed earning his first appearance at the Midsummer Classic. In the end...

We’ve made it to the final week of the regular season. There are still two divisions in the American League up for grabs, a couple of long-shot playoff hopefuls looking to make a last-minute run, and playoff seeding to fight over. It should make for a dramatic end to a great season. Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system . If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the ran...

Max Muncy is still a work in progress. Four-plus years after he was featured here at FanGraphs in a piece titled, Oakland Prospect Max Muncy is Trying to Find Himself in High-A , the 2021 first-rounder is doing much the same in the majors. Currently slashing a wholly uninspiring 230/.296/.387 with nine home runs and an 83 wRC+ over 284 plate appearances, Muncy remains — as he readily admitted when I spoke to him earlier this summer — in search of his groove. “It’s one of those things that might be ever-evolving,” said the 24-year-old infielder, who put up not-dissimilar numbers after debuting with the A’s last season. “You have to just keep working at it. Every level presents a new challenge — the pitchers are better, so you have to make adjustments — and luckily there is no level higher than this one. Once I get enough at-bats, get to play consistently, I’m going to do what I know I can do. I’m going to be a good player.” Muncy said in our 2022 conversation that he had been do...