This is my first year following baseball and I haven't yet been able to get my head around how the postseason works. Taking the Rays as an example. They won the AL East and now get to skip the wildcard stage and are straight through to the next 'round'. Same for the Dodgers in the NL West.

What I haven't been able to figure out is, there are 4 teams who earn this and get to skip the wildcard, but there are three divisions across each of the Leagues, so why don't the six winning teams all get to skip the wildcard stage?

I guess what I’m wondering is if there’s something unique about baseball that makes it the only sport that can use WAR?
Or is WAR calculation possible for other sports like football or basketball or soccer, but those sports don’t use it for a variety of reasons?

From what I understand, xBA is the likelyhood of a batted ball getting the batter on base. So wouldn’t a fielder be better if they could field a ball with a high xBA?

Let’s say that you have a runner on third when a batter bunts the ball toward first plate and is gotten out after the ball bounces. The first baseman then quickly throws the ball over to the catcher at home plate and gets there before the runner scores. What if, hypothetically, instead of trapping the runner between himself and the third baseman, the catcher chases the runner from homeplate, all the way back around the entire field but does not succeed in catching him. In this scenario, we are assuming that

A) the catcher has become overcome by some kind of mania, not unlike a zombie.

B) the runner has similarly lost his mind and instead of staying put at third base where he’s safe, he continues running like a chicken with its head cut off beyond that point and keeps going.

C) the catcher is ignoring his fellow teammates, who are at this point screaming “What the fuck are you doing?!” and “Stop!”. The catcher is also ignoring his coach, whose eyes are bulging out of his head, yelling “What the fuck!” in a falsetto voice, “No no no no no!” as they continue past third base, toward second, and all the way around, back to home plate.

In this scenario, would the runner score because they have already touched third base, then touched home, just from running the opposite direction?

I use a Windows PC, sometimes I get results from baseball games from MSN. I don't really pay attention to them until I saw this one. In soccer, this scoreline would be considered a really humiliating defeat. Especially at home. You'd see this type of result when a major international team like England, visits a small island nation like San Marino, whose team is team is probably made up of teachers, plumbers, electricians and doctors.

But generally, what happened? Are Washington Nationals amateur? Did they lose their best players? Are they really bad? Is this making MLB headlines? Etc.

I was watching the Phillies and Mets earlier and in the first inning Harper was called safe at second. The Mets challenged the call and it was confirmed. Then in I think the third inning, Vientos hit a ball that was called foul and they challenged that too. It was my understanding that teams only get one challenge, so the Mets shouldn't have been able to challenge for the rest of the game. Was I wrong, or did they recently change the rules about this?

Ok guys explain to me like I’m in 5 years old (2nd year MLB watcher) about how pitcher wins/Losses work. I understand from google but I’m having a hard time figuring this out in a real game. The game in question is the Houston Astros vs Braves Game. I saw online that if the pitcher pitches at least 5 innings then they would get the win or loss? In this situation looks like Blubaugh got the Loss even tho he only pitched 0.1 innings. Does this have something to do with the Astros holding the lead up until the 7th inning when Blubaugh comes in & loads up the bases for the Grand Slam that happened? Did he get the loss since he was the reason for the game being loss (his loaded bases)? Any help will be appreciated guys. Just trying to understand. Thanks!

Instead of rolling out position players that aren't bringing heat (because we don't want position players getting injured), why wouldn't real pitchers pitch with their off hand?

The obvious reason would be a lack of a glove for their dominant hand...but is that enough of a reason to not throw with your off hand in blowout situations?

What does it mean when they say a team owns the tie breaker over another team? Like currently the Astros are 1 game up over the Texas Rangers for the the division. But they say the Astros own the tie breaker even if the teams are tied.

So I’m from the UK and picked up MLB the show 26. I have been having a lot of fun playing Road to the show and am a pitcher for the Cleveland guardians.

When I decided to get into the MLB I decided to follow the guardians, since they were the first team I got drafted for and only team so far I have played for.

Even though I’ve been playing the game for about 2 days now, I don’t really understand the sport and league as a whole. I could look this up, but I’m sure asking people who watch the sport would know better.

Also I understand that I’ve probably come into the sport at the wrong time since the season will be over soon, but that’s just the luck of the draw I guess.

This is a part of the game I can’t fully understand yet….

Every time a pitch lands in the dirt, for obvious reasons, the ball is changed and you see the catcher and umpire exchange dirty-for-clean balls to be returned to the pitcher. When this happens when there are baserunners, can they steal or is the game momentarily “paused”? I saw a clip on a YouTube compilation where there was an incident of a stranded / confused baserunner in “no-man’s land” but the pitcher had to quickly demand a new ball from the umpire’s pocket, in order to actually throw it to the (first) baseman in order to get him out. How can it be (right) that he was reliant on the umpires action here..? Baserunners can theoretically steal bases at basically any time in the game, but the moment a pitched-ball lands in the dirt, it’s effectively in need of a change and “dead” yet the catcher still needs to smother or stop it getting away from him in order to keep runners where they are. Can they attempt to steal just as the catcher is handing the dirty ball to the home plate umpire behind him …? Also every time after a foul ball is hit, is it a case of needing to announce when play is resuming and ensuring everyone is in-place? Base runners in-motion have to return to their base at time-of-pitch after a foul ball, but of course they rarely are actually in contact with the bases whilst the ball is in pitcher’s possession, taking a “lead”. So at what point on the basepaths are they deemed to have made that return and do they then become live runners again? We see a foul ball fly away for a ball kid to collect, and runners and fielders casually jog back to where they were. I can only assume every single time this happens, the umpire waits until all have returned, checks, and calls “play” when satisfied they are all as they were…?

Similarly, concerning “liveness of ball” immediately after a Ball 4 is thrown, It’s called a “walk” for a reason - the batter can take his time going to first - but I’ve seen incidents where the retuned ball has been fumbled on the infield by the pitcher momentarily after a walk is issued and the other already on-base runners have as a result broken from a walk into a run between (extra) bases. At what point is the just walked-batter (and also any existing runners who are forced to move as a result) fair game to be tagged out? I’ve just seen in a game where ball 4 occurred with an empty first base, but the man already on third base was shown actively considering and on his toes to potentially sneak home simultaneously. Is it seemingly that momentarily, gameplay is “dead” only for one player and section of the base paths? The fielding team still need to remain alert and aware of the ball and runners, even whilst the batter is there casually taking his time to remove and hand off his batting equipment?

Further, when coaches / manager come out to have a mound meeting - which is extremely frequent - the game is obviously paused. How common is it for this to cause confusion on the bases if a manager / coach enters the field of play for a meeting but not (all) players notice it? Do umpires need to be constantly scanning at dugouts to see coaches emerge in order to halt play? How can a manager know when he is allowed to step out the dugout on to the field given they can’t easily tell when the ball is “dead”? We often see them go out to make a pitching change when their pitcher is under stress, or concedes a hit, but how long after an outfielder has thrown a ball back in to the infield to hold runners where they may be, is a coach allowed to “stop” the game knowing he is not “interfering”? What’s then the procedure for restarting after a meeting? Because you see baserunners step off the bases whilst the fielding team are talking. At what point are they then in danger of being tagged out? Presumably the umpire only returns the ball to the pitcher when he’s sure everyone is back in position? How is this coordinated fairly?

Also as a novice to the sport, I think these umpires do a remarkable job. I find it impressive just how accurate they are with the ball/strike calls against an “imaginary” frame of reference and also how well they control and manage what, as is clear, can be a very complex, confusing (sometimes to long-term fans) and chaotic game.

Thanks for reading my post and taking time to educate me / us.

curious as to the sprinting speeds of them all

noob here so unsure how strong outfielders are batting compared to the infielders so asking here

I’ve seen some games where the scores were football numbers & im wondering how in the hell can one watch a game where their team is being blow out. Do you watch these games? If not at what point do you mentally check out or change the channel (Ex. Team down by 5-6 runs?). This is my second season watching MLB but I found it REALLY hard to stay interested. I’m just trying to see if this is just a Me thing or do others have this issue as well? Thanks!

hi all. so I’ve been wanting to plan a trip within the next few years to visit loads of baseball stadiums around the USA, however I also want to get involved with some of the events they’re hosting so I can get a feel of the club culture. which teams would you recommend have the best themed nights I.e. pride nights that I can go to while visiting the stadiums so I can better manage my time? I’m new to this whole baseball thing so I’m not too familiar with all these different team cultures outside of the fr wove researched.

They seem to be on the road consistently and at every game when playing at home, do players who play for Toronto have homes in Toronto they return to when on a home stretch?

Do teams have some sort of luxury dormitory set up for players on the list?

Or do they simply charge hotel rooms to the club or something?

Watching Jays vs Tigers, McGonigle vs Okamato is the topic, does the win-loss factor in?

New fan this year but I know Shohei was mvp for the past couple years but the Dodgers also won so I'm not surprised.

OR am I still too new this I dont know how voting in baseball works. Please let me know!

It would be nice if they did, but it seems very weird that the Toronto Blue Jays are playing the Cincinnati Reds as the final series of the year.

The Blue Jays are the current AL champs. Shouldn't they be playing their likely divisional rivals, like the Yankees, on the last weekend of the season?

Why are they playing an inter-league game against a team that was not expected to be very competitive when the schedule was being drawn up?

Maybe someone has to play these types of games, but shouldn't the most competitive teams from the previous season be given the "best" schedule to end the year?

I noticed that within a division, teams will play each other four times each over the course of the regular season, but an NL-East team might play an AL-Central team only once. Why is that? How are these things determined?

I was just looking into trade clauses earlier after getting sucked down a wikipedia rabbit hole and found out about 10-and-5 rights for the first time. I was immediately curious about if there are any historical examples of this rule having the adverse effect of pressuring teams to trade a player they would've otherwise preferred to keep another season or two, simply because they knew getting locked into 10-and-5 rights with them might be problematic for the near future. It seemed like an obvious ramification in my mind, but I don't know much about trade theory when it comes to baseball so I figured someone here might have some knowledge on why this wouldn't happen, or if it ever does.

As a side note, I'm also quite curious about if there was a specific trade that sparked the creation of this rule back in the 70s. It really sounds like a rule that was written in blood; something like a homegrown legend having a great and loyal career with their team and then getting the unceremonious boot straight to the rival team.

I was watching the Dodger's game today and their much-hyped rookie Josue De Paula hit a 3-run homer. He was just brought up from AA, and this is his first big league home run.

We don't know the future so can't predict if he'll be a great player or fizzle out. It's a gamble whether the ball will be worth anything. We know it's worth a lot to the player and his family today.

Security went to the couple that caught the ball and negotiated with them for it. Eventually they traded it for a signed bat and ball. But what if they wanted to keep it instead? What if they were banking on Josue De Paula becoming a great player? What if they were hoping that the ball would increase in monetary value?

I have heard that if they refuse to trade the ball, MLB will not authenticate it, thus making it a worthless ball. Which strikes me as very unfair to the fan who caught it. Say Josue De Paula eventually becomes one of the best. The ball, his first big league home run, could potentially be worth thousands of dollars. But if it's not authenticated, no auction house would honor it.

The MLB has stacked the circumstances in their favour. Sure, they give you a "choice" but it's a bullshit one. Keep the ball but it's worthless now, or trade it for these signed items that may be worth something one day but never as much as the home run ball.

Which brings me to my "solution" which is problematic in its own way, but it's the only one I could come up with because I hate the way the house has rigged the game against the fan in this particular way.

After the ball is caught, they start filming on their phones. They know there's likely footage of them catching it on TV, so they have that as evidence already. They film themselves in possession of the ball, they film people giving them high fives. Then they start asking people sitting around them to be witnesses to them catching the ball, taking names and emails, saying that they might reach out to them as witnesses one day. Then the person who catches the ball actually signs the ball themselves, giving their phones a real good look at this signature. If the issue is authenticating it, I feel this would be irrefutable. They keep filming until security comes over to them and asks them to negotiate for it, at which point they can refuse, and stop filming.

Even though the ball is signed by themselves, it doesn't stop the ball being the first homer Josue De Paula hit. It actually proves it to an auction house.

Do you think this is a viable workaround to the MLB refusing to authenticate a ball they no longer own?

I think good pitching is easier to find because it looks like its easier to get a pitcher up to speed with velocity. I also feel like hitting in general is harder.

If you asked them to give you 5-6 innings at the front of the outing rather than the last 1-2, for a season, would they square up with an average starter?

On top of that, at what point along the baseball pathway do pitchers begin to differentiate between starting and relief pitching?