Fangraphs Weekly Mail Bags: August 30, 2025

Hello, welcome to this week’s mailbag! Matt Martell deserves his reputation
Holidays, so I’m driving in place of his. Matt chose a good time to get some R&R. There is still one month left in the season, and the playoffs are basically set. As Michael Baumann pointed out in his work yesterday: “At the beginning of this season, there was no playoff in this National League this year. At least in the past 12 seasons. There is always hope for every league in the last 12 seasons, even in two carnival card rounds, especially in this annoying sixteen heads, which is not in 2020 in the year. Entering Friday’s game, the Reds trailed the Mets’ four games to get the final NL wildcard. Their playoff odds accounted for 4.4%. The Junior Tour had no more appeal. Royals sat on three games on the third wildcard in that league, and as the long weekend approached, the playoff odds were only 12.6%.

But that doesn’t mean there is no fun. Kyle Schwarber hit four home runs in one game this week! Jonah Tong and Payton Tolle make their debut! There is high tea! Although we basically know who will play baseball in October, the two Western divisions are still unstable.

Your question this week isn’t particularly relevant to the playoffs, although two of them involve key players on teams looking to run a deep playoff run. We will also narrow down to take into account how many teams can complete .500 and the future of public pitching analysis. But before we do this, I’ll remind you all of this and anyone can submit a question, the mailbag is unique to Fangraphs members. If you don’t have a membership yet and want to continue reading, you can sign up for a membership here. This is the best way to experience the site again and support our staff and brings many other huge benefits. Also, if you want to ask a question about an upcoming mailbag, be sure to email us: sailbag@fangraphs.com.