Chicago Cubs
fromBattery Power
3 days agoIs Tarik Skubal the best pitcher in baseball?
Tarik Skubal has high projections and strong fWAR but is not currently the leader in pitching fWAR.
Over the course of his 16-year career, the designated hitter played for the Cincinnati Reds, Blue Jays, Cleveland Guardians, Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees, and Chicago White Sox, making a name for himself in his third full season with the Blue Jays. After 16 seasons in the big leagues, Encarnación finished with a .260/.350/.496 slash line with 424 home runs in 8,126 plate appearances for a 125 wRC+ and 33.5 fWAR. Unfortunately, Encarnación will not make the Hall of Fame.
Back before the 2025 season, I wrote an article that the 2025 bullpen could look a bit different than the bullpen of the three most recent Braves seasons. Basically, that article had a table that indicated: Braves' bullpen preseason projected rank was top four or better from 2022-2024, top eight the two seasons before that, and then dropping to ninth ahead of 2025; Braves' bullpen finished in the top ten in fWAR each year from 2020-2024;
Right now, if you go to FanGraphs and sort by position player fWAR with 200 or more PAs, you get a list that maybe isn't that surprising. Or, rather, the placement of some guys might be surprising, but anyway... Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr., Shohei Ohtani - those guys are phenomenal but they were better last year. Cal Raleigh is having a legendary season but has been an All-Star-plus quality guy for years now.