Around Baseball 2026

[hanton]

7 hours ago, BTS said:

Anyone know of an alternative to this tool, which used to be helpful but is now completely busted?

Player Tracker | Prospect Pipeline | MLB.com | MLB.com

Never used this but yea it's broken.  Maybe try Fangraphs or use the Search feature on Baseball Savant - it's pretty powerful

[hanton]

5 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

I thought I saw one the other night where the pitch was outside, the ump called a ball, but the player originally thought it was a strike and called for a challenge.  Once he realized the ump did call it a ball, he tried to stop the review, but was denied.  

The pitch was confirmed correct, so he lost the challenge!

Maybe I was dreaming again?

I don't remember that one but I used Gemini to summarize all the variants of unintentional or accidental ABS challenges.  This is going to be a problem if it's not fixed soon.

I haven't checked in detail if all these are correct so just FYI:

The Pitcher Tic and Misinterpreted Signal are the 2 that I saw

• The Frustration Tap: A player taps or grabs their helmet as a reflex of being upset (like Ben Rice), which the umpire is required to interpret as a challenge.

• The Pitcher’s Tic: A pitcher instinctively adjusts their cap or wipes their brow (like Bubba Chandler) within the 2-second window, unintentionally triggering the sensor or umpire’s attention.

• The Reflexive Double-Fail: A hitter challenges a pitch before hearing the call (like Jordan Westburg), only to find out the umpire called it a ball. Because it cannot be retracted, they "lose" the challenge because the call was already correct.

• The Misinterpreted Signal: A teammate (often the catcher or the next batter) taps their head thinking their teammate wants to challenge, accidentally burning the team’s timeout (like Will Smith/Shohei Ohtani).

• The Panic Challenge: Challenging a pitch that is clearly a strike (sometimes by several inches) out of desperation in a high-leverage count, often referred to as a "throwaway" or "worst challenge."

• The Gear Adjustment: Simple equipment maintenance—like tightening a chin strap or pulling down a brim—that happens to fall within the strict 2-second post-pitch window.

[hanton]

CJ Abrams with a bomb off Skenes, after looking foolish swinging through a heater then pulling a breaking pitch foul before homering off a 99.5mph pitch

[Laika]

Crochet blowing his whole season tonight

Yuck

[hanton]

Aaron Boone going hard on the bubble gum.

Halo's erased a 4 run Yankee lead and it's now tied after 2

[BTS]

Crochet's start is the kind that often precedes an IL stint 

[Jonn]

Crochet looks toast. Got his absolute s*** kicked in.

[Laika]

9 hours ago, BTS said:

Anyone know of an alternative to this tool, which used to be helpful but is now completely busted?

Player Tracker | Prospect Pipeline | MLB.com | MLB.com

Get Claude to make you a dashboard or pull a custom report when asked. 

[gruber9292]

Yankee Stadium is a complete joke. Grisham just hit a 3 run HR 355 ft to the power alley. 

[Laika]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Get Claude to make you a dashboard or pull a custom report when asked. 

 

Example... I asked it to make me a summary visual but it made this html thing instead. Pretty cool. Just need to whip it a few more times and it should be perfect 

These are my fantasy baseball prospects. Hitters: Roldy Brito, Billy Carlson, Roc Riggio, Aroon Escobar, Cooper Ingle, Seaver King, Alex Freeland, Aiva Arquette, Thayron Liranzo, Rainiel Rodriguez, Juan Brito (Cleveland), Cole Young, Johnny Level, Hayden Alvarez. Pitchers: Didier Fuentes, Nestor German, Johnny King, Owen Murphy, Christian Oppor, Blade Tidwell, Kendry Rojas, Thomas Harrington, Owen Wild, AJ Russell, Jaden Hamm, Jurrangelo Cjintje, Brandon Young, Luke Sinnard, David Shields, Connor Prielipp, Dasan Hill, Tyler Bremner, Luis De Leon (Baltimore).

Can you pull me a summary (spreadsheet stole or similar visual) that shows their stats so far in 2026? Here are the stats I want to see. For hitters: age, level (MLB, AAA, AA, etc.) games played, plate appearances, HR, SB, K%, BB%, wRC+, wOBA, AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, ISO, barrel rate, maxEV, BABIP, GB%, FB%, LD%. For Pitchers: age, level, games played, games started, innings pitched, K%, BB%, K, BB, ERA, FIP,  xFIP, HR/FB%, BABIP.

If a player has stats at multiple levels, show both levels separately as well as their combined 2026 stats. If any player has a recent injury note on rotowire let me know. You can find all of these stats on Fangraphs and Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant and other popular sites. Some players may have no 2026 data yet. If you can't find the stat for a certain player or if you aren't 100% sure it's the right stat just leave it blank. 

I may ask you to update this list every few weeks.

 

[Jonn]

Looks like Judge is about to go on one of his generational power stroke runs.

[Jonn]

Enjoy guys. Goodnight.

[hanton]

Ohtani plunked, on his  right shoulder blade

extends his on base streak lol

[gruber9292]

Jordan Romano is doing Romano things. What a bum. 

[Stangstag]

21 minutes ago, gruber9292 said:

Jordan Romano is doing Romano things. What a bum. 

Mike Trout did his damn best to single-handedly take down the Yankees.

Romano stinks loll 0 outs

[jaysblue]

A lot of lopsided/high scoring games yesterday damn. 

Pirates crushed the Nations, Yankees/Angels was a slugfest, Twins crushed the Red Sox, D'Back/Orioles also a slugfest, Cleveland crushed the Cards.

[ComeTogether]

https://theprovince.com/news/local-news/bc-place-the-baseball-stadium-that-wasnt

Not likely to happen. But I wouldn't mind another team in Canada.   

 

They did play exhibition game there.  Mariners, Jays and Expos I think. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/s/RSpiIiMiI6

 

 

[G-Snarls]

Twins 

A's 

Angels 

 

All .500 or above 

Which if any are for real 

[mphenhef]

17 hours ago, ComeTogether said:

https://theprovince.com/news/local-news/bc-place-the-baseball-stadium-that-wasnt

Not likely to happen. But I wouldn't mind another team in Canada.   

 

They did play exhibition game there.  Mariners, Jays and Expos I think. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/s/RSpiIiMiI6

 

 

I think to make it happen they would need to come in with a strong ownership plan who are either funding their own stadium or public funding for a new stadium.  There would likely need to be some concessions to Seattle (and maybe Toronto) for entering their territory too.

[Stangstag]

8 hours ago, G-Snarls said:

Twins 

A's 

Angels 

 

All .500 or above 

Which if any are for real 

MAYBE the A’s but I wouldn’t take them over the Mariners so even if they go 85 wins they’ll miss the playoffs IMO.

 

[Brownie19]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

MAYBE the A’s but I wouldn’t take them over the Mariners so even if they go 85 wins they’ll miss the playoffs IMO.

 

I agree with this.

[Brownie19]

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/3523734/tigers-sign-mcgonigle-to-8-year-extension-reportedly-worth-150-m

Tigers lock up McGonigle.  8 years $150M.  The kid looks like a stud.  

 

Is this going to be the new trend in baseball?  You lock up your young stud prospects when they have little to no experience or proven results at the ML level?  It certainly seems that way.

[Laika]

I hate it for the players

Virtually every player who reaches free agency at 27 or so gets hella paid these days. Even if it's not Vlad/Soto level of mega contracts, it's high AAV crap like Bo got or worthwhile short term money with options like Bellinger 

Guy like McGonigle already has 3/4 WAR projections and is 21 years old. I guess he is insuring against catastrophic injury more than anything but selling those three future free agent years for like 60 cents on the dollar to do so is kinda GROSS. Limiting his total career earning potential quite a bit. 

Even a guy becoming a young free agent with big flaws, like Gleyber Torres, is getting $15 to $22M annually these days. 

Yes it gives him a crack at full free agency at 30 years old but THAT IS WHEN TEAMS START TO HATE YOU.

The calculations change wildly if he only sells one free agent year. I would get that. 

[Terminator]

5 minutes ago, Laika said:

I hate it for the players

Virtually every player who reaches free agency at 27 or so gets hella paid these days. Even if it's not Vlad/Soto level of mega contracts, it's high AAV crap like Bo got or worthwhile short term money with options like Bellinger 

Guy like McGonigle already has 3/4 WAR projections and is 21 years old. I guess he is insuring against catastrophic injury more than anything but selling those three future free agent years for like 60 cents on the dollar to do so is kinda GROSS. Limiting his total career earning potential quite a bit. 

Even a guy becoming a young free agent with big flaws, like Gleyber Torres, is getting $15 to $22M annually these days. 

Yes it gives him a crack at full free agency at 30 years old but THAT IS WHEN TEAMS START TO HATE YOU.

The calculations change wildly if he only sells one free agent year. I would get that. 

Agreed. If Konnor Griffin hits FA at 25 he could sign a billion dollar contract. McConigle could get a touch less as a 27 year old. Signing as a 30 year old cuts that in half.

The "life changing" money argument doesn't really fly for me either. Anything short of catastrophic injury and they will make life changing money through arb and one year FA deals.

Unfortunately, Vlad and Bo understood this.

[mphenhef]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/3523734/tigers-sign-mcgonigle-to-8-year-extension-reportedly-worth-150-m

Tigers lock up McGonigle.  8 years $150M.  The kid looks like a stud.  

 

Is this going to be the new trend in baseball?  You lock up your young stud prospects when they have little to no experience or proven results at the ML level?  It certainly seems that way.

I think a lot of this is bring driven by the pending CBA negotiations where the owners think there will be something grandfathered in that reduces the hit they take for pre-existing contracts.  

 

But I'm sure the Tucker and Bo deals let alone Vlad, Soto and Ohtani have played into it as well.

[jaysblue]

5 hours ago, Terminator said:

Agreed. If Konnor Griffin hits FA at 25 he could sign a billion dollar contract. McConigle could get a touch less as a 27 year old. Signing as a 30 year old cuts that in half.

The "life changing" money argument doesn't really fly for me either. Anything short of catastrophic injury and they will make life changing money through arb and one year FA deals.

Unfortunately, Vlad and Bo understood this.

Konnor Griffin needs to prove himself first and post a couple 4-5 WAR seasons in order to do that. 

For every hyped prospect like Konnor Griffin, there sometimes is a Brandon Wood. Just saying. 

[Terminator]

18 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

Konnor Griffin needs to prove himself first and post a couple 4-5 WAR seasons in order to do that. 

For every hyped prospect like Konnor Griffin, there sometimes is a Brandon Wood. Just saying. 

Yeah I hear ya but 4–5 WAR is actually below his median outcome. That’s more like ~40th percentile. That's how good of a prospect he is.

So even if Griffin hits his 20th percentile projections, he’s probably still signing his next contract for the "life changing money" he just got.

I just don't think the Pirates are taking enough risk here. Griffin would need to be a real disaster (injury or ~10th percentile outcome) for the math to work out for him on this contract. 

 

[BTS]

Romano just imploded again 

[bronson44]

Passan:

The Major League Baseball Players Association fired chief operating officer Xavier James and its head of human resources, Michael O'Neill, with cause today, sources tell me and

@DVNJr

. The firings came after an internal investigation spurred by the DOJ looking into the MLBPA.

[Stangstag]

36 minutes ago, BTS said:

Romano just imploded again 

Holy s*** man he’s terrible. Could have been a sweep for the Angels lol