Independent baseball analysis by Ignacio González. Exploring player value, contracts, historic teams, awards and legacies through data and storytelling.
Joined September 2026
- Tweets44
- Following36
- Followers4
- Likes24
Bench Coach Notes retweeted
2/3 — The exercise:
Using the 2022–2025 champions as a reference, I ranked this year’s playoff teams against all 30 MLB clubs and weighted four categories:
50% hitting — wRC+
25% pitching — FIP−, entire staff
20% baserunning — BsR
5% fielding — FRV
The picks:
AL champion: Rays
NL champion: Brewers
World Series champion: Brewers 🏆
Milwaukee scored 88.8, ahead of the Dodgers (78.6) and Rays (76.2). Those are index scores, not championship probabilities.
Yes, I deliberately left the 2021 Braves out of the reference group. They ranked 12th, 13th, 14th, and 13th in those categories… and won anyway 😂
They’re also the perfect reminder of how much this exercise can miss.
Bench Coach Notes retweeted
DYK: Luis Aparicio led the American League in stolen bases in each of his first nine seasons (1956-64).
He is the only player to ever lead a league in any category for nine straight seasons.
In 1984, Aparicio was elected to the Hall of Fame, becoming the first Venezuelan-born player to be enshrined in Cooperstown. #HHM
ALT Luis Aparicio poses in a gray Chicago White Sox road uniform, circa late 1960s.
Bench Coach Notes retweeted
DYK: Ronald Acuña Jr. has the most stolen bases by any player in a 40-home run season. Acuña swiped 73 bags in 2023 when he slugged 41 home runs in the first 40/40 season in MLB since 2006.
Acuña slugged his 200th career home run earlier this month. He became the fastest player (904 games) to reach 200 HR and 200 SB.
Acuña also had 2 HR and 2 SB to help lead Team Venezuela to the 2026 World Baseball Classic championship. #HHM
ALT Ronald Acuña Jr. shouting with excitement as he sits up at home plate after a headfirst slide. He wears a gray Braves uniform and blue batting helmet.
Bench Coach Notes retweeted
Peter Bendix, Presidente de Operaciones de Béisbol de los #Marlins sobre Javier Sanoja: “su temporada fue increíble. Nos mostró que es un jugador de todos los días en Grandes Ligas y que podría ser una súper estrella”.
1/3 — Who’s winning the World Series? ⚾️
October has a funny way of ignoring expectations. Regular-season MVPs can go quiet, while someone like Marco Scutaro or Kiké Hernández becomes the main character.
But just for fun, I built a simple model using regular-season performance to make my picks.
No crystal ball. Just four metrics, some subjective weights, and a prediction I’ll probably regret. 🧵
2/3 — The exercise:
Using the 2022–2025 champions as a reference, I ranked this year’s playoff teams against all 30 MLB clubs and weighted four categories:
50% hitting — wRC+
25% pitching — FIP−, entire staff
20% baserunning — BsR
5% fielding — FRV
The picks:
AL champion: Rays
NL champion: Brewers
World Series champion: Brewers 🏆
Milwaukee scored 88.8, ahead of the Dodgers (78.6) and Rays (76.2). Those are index scores, not championship probabilities.
Yes, I deliberately left the 2021 Braves out of the reference group. They ranked 12th, 13th, 14th, and 13th in those categories… and won anyway 😂
They’re also the perfect reminder of how much this exercise can miss.
3/3 — Setting the numbers aside, the Dodgers are still the team to beat in my eyes.
Others I wouldn’t count out, even if this model doesn’t pick them:
• Cubs: No. 1 in hitting AND fielding, but No. 28 in pitching. If their October arms outperform that ranking, watch out.
• Red Sox: The offense doesn’t look strong enough, but that No. 4 pitching staff makes them dangerous.
• Yankees: Will Judge take over this October and be the difference-maker, or will the young guys steal the spotlight and carry this team?
• Braves: 20th in hitting, 15th in pitching, 7th in fielding, and 18th in baserunning — hardly the profile you’d expect from a 94-win team. Could they make this exercise look silly again, just like in 2021?
Let the best time of the year begin! ⚾️🍿
A muchos parece haberles afectado negativamente el WBC —o al menos esa ha sido la explicación—, pero con Eduardo Rodríguez ocurrió todo lo contrario. Él mismo habló del enorme impacto que tuvo trabajar con Johan Santana.
Y eso es justamente lo que deberían aprovechar los jugadores top cuando van al Clásico: compartir semanas con tipos como Johan Santana, Andy Pettitte, Miguel Cabrera, Jorge Posada, Víctor Martínez, Albert Pujols, etc.
Son perspectivas y experiencias que difícilmente encuentras en un Spring Training normal
¡Qué temporada, Gualo!
Enorme año para Eduardo Rodríguez.
@JuegaEnLinea. ¡El lugar más seguro para divertirse!
#Dbacks | #ElExtrabase⚾️🇻🇪
Obviously deGrom
What’s crazy is what 2021 could’ve been for him:
15 starts, 1.08 ERA, 373 ERA+, 4.5 bWAR, 0.55 WHIP.
And maybe the craziest stat of all: he was hitting .364/.364/.394/.758.
Such a shame he couldn’t finish that season
Bench Coach Notes retweeted
I think the most incredible part of PCA's season is that through 50 games: he was hitting all of .225/.302/.357 with 5 HR.
Liam Hicks’ seventh inning might be the worst inning I’ve seen from a catcher in a while.
Two terrible ABS challenges — neither was even close. Two wild pitches he probably should’ve blocked. Stolen bases. And then whatever happened on that George Lombard Jr. play.
This is the starting catcher for the team with the best record in the American League
1/ 703 home runs. One of the greatest hitters baseball has ever seen.
Albert Pujols' legacy deserves every bit of this celebration. But his career also raises an interesting contract question:
St. Louis got extraordinary value from him. Did the Angels get enough from their 10-year, $240M commitment? 🧵
4/ There was also a business side. Contemporary reporting described rising ticket and merchandise sales after Pujols and C.J. Wilson signed.
But that doesn't isolate Pujols' contribution—or tell us how much additional profit he generated over a decade.
So this is an assessment of baseball value, not a complete financial audit. We can't simply subtract our WAR estimate from the contract and call the difference a cash loss.
5/ On the field, this was a poor deal for the Angels. That doesn't diminish Pujols' extraordinary career or his 703 home runs.
It also illustrates the distinction in the Vladdy debate: a player's past helps establish his price, but the team is investing in what comes next.
Anaheim wasn't settling a bill for what Pujols had done in St. Louis. It was betting on the production and commercial appeal he could bring to the Angels.
His greatness was real. The risk was how much of it still lay ahead.