"Ideally," Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told The Athletic in December, "we need fewer strikeouts, some better decision-making, better contact rates." Fewer strikeouts. Sounds good. In theory. If you're looking for more balls in play, the 2021 Cubs might be your team ... for better, or, perhaps, worse....

The game's best pitchers have, generally, some great pitches. We're not breaking any new ground here to say it: Great pitchers have great pitches! Usually, anyway. But in an era when we can quantify more and more about every single pitch in the Majors, perhaps we can find pitches from...

The Astros lost Charlie Morton and Dallas Keuchel to free agency after 2018, and Gerrit Cole left Houston after ’19. Zack Greinke, Lance McCullers Jr. and Justin Verlander, who might miss all of 2021 following Tommy John surgery, can test the open market next offseason. And Forrest Whitley, part of...

Zac Gallen was in the middle of shutting down the Dodgers one night last September when Orel Hershiser, calling the game, made the comparison: he thought the D-backs' young ace was commanding the edges of the strike zone like Greg Maddux....

Earlier this week, we made our predictions for the breakout hitters of 2021. Now how about some pitchers? Recent seasons have seen a bunch of exciting new aces make the leap, like Dinelson Lamet and Corbin Burnes in 2020 and Shane Bieber and Lucas Giolito in 2019. Let's figure out...

Marcus Semien got into 768 regular-season games on defense for the A's after they traded for him in the winter of 2014-15, and he played shortstop for every single one of those appearances. He played so much shortstop that only one player, Boston's Xander Bogaerts, got into more games at...

Some hitters rake from pretty much their first day in the big leagues. In recent seasons, precocious talents such as Ronald Acuña Jr., Pete Alonso, Cody Bellinger and Juan Soto have immediately announced themselves as stars. But more often, finding your footing against Major League pitching takes time. It requires...

At first glance, the gap between the Dodgers’ and Marlins’ rotations appears to be larger than the distance between Los Angeles and Miami. The Dodgers arguably have the game’s best starting staff after adding reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer last week. The Marlins, meanwhile, ranked 14th...

Every hitter has tendencies. Some have a knack for lifting the ball in the air and others for keeping it on the ground. Some love to pull the ball, while others frequently go to the opposite field. Whatever they like to do, we can capture and contextualize it using tools...

The projections do hate your team, Atlanta fans. Here's why. The Braves are the three-time defending NL East champions, having won nearly 60% of regular-season games in the past three seasons. In 2020, they came within a game of going to the World Series; they have the defending NL Most...