#65 What's left to decide?

Plus: Are we finally post-peak strikeout?

The Opener

1. This is now a Rangers injury update newsletter and we have a Rangers injury update for you: Corey Seager had an appendectomy on Thursday after leaving the game the night before with abdominal pain and is out for an indefinite amount of time. “Corey did not want to rule out the season, and in fact, he's been researching athletes who've come back from this quickly,” Chris Young, the team's president of baseball operations, said. And, sure, he’s laid up post appendectomy, might as well get a google or two in.

2. Kyle Schwarber hit three four home runs in one game against the Braves to bring his season total to 49. Even he seems agog. Twenty-four hours after getting shut out by the Mets to cap a demoralizing sweep, the Phillies put up an 19 spot. Always remember: momentum is a post-hoc construct.

3. Shohei Ohtani had his best start on the mound since returning from his second UCL repair. After two shaky starts in a row, Ohtani had his first five-inning outing since the surgery, surrendering just one run. He also had a hit and a run scored at the plate. Imagine seeing that boxscore if you had never heard of Ohtani.

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Maybe this should be a bit or a bob below because it’s really just restating the premise of our last newsletter, but I wanted to call it out in a concerted way:

It is not yet September and the playoff field is effectively set. Sure there’s some jockeying for division versus Wild Card, but with a month left to go the races are over. The remaining stakes are more specific and individual.

Let’s look at FanGraphs’ playoff odds.

All 12 teams currently holding a playoff spot have greater than 90% odds of making the postseason. The six national league teams currently holding a postseason spot all have greater than 96% odds. Among teams that don’t currently hold a playoff spot, the Royals have the highest chance in the American League to sneak in at 14.3% and the Reds have the highest chance in the NL at just 3.3%!!!!

This seems, in a word, bad. There’s more than 400 games left in the regular season. You could skip them all, Rip Van Winkle your way to October, and not miss a beat. The expanded postseason, which was supposed to give more fanbases a rooting interest down to the wire has, this year at least, done the opposite. Cards on the table: I don’t like the 12-team field. But I don’t particularly want to debate the merits of playoff structures, rather I’m interested in the feeling that all the good teams (and maybe some that aren’t even) get in.

I wrote once that the health of a sports league could be measured in how many fanbases are reasonably distraught on the day after the regular season ends. In other words: some good teams — teams that entered the final month, week, or even series giving their fans hope that would soon be crushed — should miss the cut. That would be real competitive balance and competitive integrity — not just because it would mean a lot of teams relatively evenly matched but also because there would be hard-fought games down to the wire.

I can’t tell if this baseball season feels perfunctory to me right now because it is or because the stakes of everything else are so extreme that the onus on sports to justify my attention and emotion is especially pronounced. Now I’ve done a weird thing and conflated the wider world with the playoff structure being a little too loose. But that’s precisely the problem with the baseball being kind of boring!

–Hannah Keyser

A programming note: Zach is getting married this weekend!!! And because we don’t just play friends on Substack, we’re actual buds, I’m in the wedding party. I can’t wait to witness the love, enjoy what is sure to be a discerning dinner, and keep an eye out for any Mets mentions (a nod to his fiancée and her fandom). Accordingly, we’re going to take Monday off entirely and it’ll be just me the rest of next week. Who knows, maybe I’ll just run a bunch of blurry photos from the reception.

We really appreciate your support and we’ll be back for the stretch run in September!

Everyone say Congrats, Zach!!

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The Bullpen

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Are we post-peak strikeout? The AP has a story out now about how players are hitting a little more and striking out a little less this season. If the season ended right now, there would be the same number of hits per game and strikeouts per game — which hasn’t been the case since 2018.

The league-wide K rate tells the same story. At 22% this season, it’s actually slightly lower than 2018 (22.3%) and the lowest it’s been since 2017. That’s still really high — 20 years ago it was 16.4%, but perhaps reflects the balance between hitters and pitchers shifting back ever so slightly toward the former.

By way of explanation, the AP says that this is “perhaps encouraged by baseball’s new rules but undoubtedly enabled by technology that’s helped hitters adapt to pitchers with nastier and nastier stuff” and name-checks the Trajekt Arc batting practice machines that ostensibly can replicate a pitcher’s exact arsenal.

I’m sure that’s all true. Another angle on hitters getting the, well, if not quite upper than at least a little more level hand that I haven’t seen dug into in a holistic way: deciphering pitcher tells. I’m totally spitballing here, but I’d love to read (or write) something about whether there’s video technology helping teams pinpoint minute differences in deliveries. If you’ve seen anything about this — or you have independent thoughts — let me know! –HK

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I had the first manicure of my life yesterday — for reasons you can probably discern — and left wondering if pitchers are getting manicures all the time or never at all. Those seemed to be the two options.

Did some googling and, seems like plenty are friendly with the local nail tech, especially since MLB’s baseballs started feeling harder to them in the late 2010s.

““A lot of people are usually pretty caught off guard that I’m in there,” Adam Wainwright told the Cardinals beat writer Jeff Jones in 2022.

And an ESPN feature on nail care from 2018 detailed the clutch emergency work manicurists performed for pitchers such as R.A. Dickey and Aaron Sanchez. I can’t say my nails are doing anything that high-pressure, but I didn’t hate it! —ZC

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I don’t remember another time that a pitcher was ejected after they’d been taken out of the game.

As a reminder, baseball players cannot re-enter a contest from which they’ve been removed. So Jesús Luzardo was done for the game regardless. A real “you can’t fire me, I quit!” situation. I think Luzardo is onto something here, though. Great time to air grievances since the ejection effectively doesn’t matter. Would also work if you’re a position player who has been replaced with a pinch runner. Get all your gruff out on the way off the field. Hell, if other players on your team have some complaints, pass those along too. –HK

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If you’re between 5’6” and 6’3”, live in or around Kansas City, and can sprint 100 meters, now is your chance to learn what the inside of a mascot costume smells like by entering to win a spot in the Hot Dog Race Championship Tournament (an event name that I feel like is maybe two words too long?).

And if it is rank in there, tell ‘em they need to try a little more vodka. –HK

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I’m refusing to let myself get too worked up about Mark Teixeira running for Congress in Texas so he can, among other things, “end radical woke indoctrination” and “defend life and the Second Amendment.”

I’m struggling to come up with a sports specific take so I’ll just say that I hope he loses. A sentiment I probably could have expressed with a baseball joke — if I wasn’t so worked up (oops) about the dissonance of pairing gun rights and “life” — and I invite you to suggest one in the comments. –HK

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Breaking: Red Sox calling up no. 2 prospect Payton Tolle.

mlb

A post shared by @mlb

…and I assume what we’re looking at right there is his father? The coach who broke the news to him? An image from the future of Payton reminiscing about when he debuted in the majors at 22 years old? You cannot tell me I’m looking at the face of a man born in 2002. That mustache remembers when you could pick people up at their gate in airports. –HK

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OK yeah, he’s not the only brand new pitcher with older man face.

Mets starter Nolan McLean, who we need to talk about for more substantive “he is pitching like an ace” reasons, is 24 years old but doesn’t look a day younger than 32. The facial hair choices of this year’s young hoss group are going to be especially hilarious when styles change and they look babyfaced all of a sudden at age 28. —ZC

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For those less occupied than me on this Labor Day weekend, may I suggest the Blue Jays-Brewers series?

Bo Bichette is absolutely ripping the ball around the yard right now, batting .367 since the All-Star break (second in MLB to Nick Kurtz) while striking out less than 10% of the time. He’ll be battling with the Brewers’ pitchers and speedy defense. This should be some action-packed baseball. —ZC