Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs

youtube.com2026 First Base Position Recap! Biggest Bust, Breakout & More! | Fantasy Baseball AdviceYouTube video by Fantasy Baseball Today

On that topic: We're going to be trying out some mid-day content on the FBT YouTube channel beginning next week. Don't know what that'll look like, except we'll be leaning into audience participation. My suggestion: We just play Super Mega Baseball 4 for a few hours while chatting. Subscribe!

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs@cptowers.bsky.social

Talked about Ben Rice's very, very good 2026 and why I don't necessarily expect him to be better in 2027 in our first base review on yesterday's FBT podcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dvT...

12h

Home plate collisions were bad

gospeedpacergo.bsky.social@gospeedpacergo.bsky.social

Quiet, they’ll ruin it just like they ruined home plate collisions!

13h

Yeah, baseball’s concussion protocol is very obviously lacking, and nobody really seems to care at this point.

Dodger Fan in Space@angeleno-in-space.bsky.social

They really need the trainer to do automatic concussion checks anytime there's a collision like that

13h

(If MLB wanted to take concussions seriously, they would install some kind exception for players removed for concussion checks to return, but that’ll probably never happen, so we’re left with the status quo where guys just find out they have concussions after the game sometimes)

12h

To be clear: you cannot diagnose a concussion from television! Often times, you cannot diagnose a concussion from close examination over a few minutes. This is a genuinely tough issue to get right! But it’s also clear that MLB doesn’t really try to get it right. Just is what it is at this point.

@chrissteller.bsky.social

13h

Genuinely cannot believe Chandler Simpson is staying in this game

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs reposted

Chris Steller

15h

Reconstruction 3 Enthusiast@squalortoballer.bsky.social

Penny Marshall was stockpiling Cipro in October 2001. She said it on the Today Show.

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs reposted

Dan Mason

@learnbaseball.bsky.social

18h

Good, good read. Got potential for a next generation of Sons of Sam Horn & a Nathan Flewelling 🇨🇦 update!

FanGraphs Baseball@fangraphs.com

Arizona Fall League Midseason Check-In blogs.fangraphs.com/arizona-fall...

blogs.fangraphs.comArizona Fall League Midseason Check-InLet’s run through how some of the most notable prospects playing in the AFL have performed thus far.

i mean sure yeah but if "he was awful at the plate" was all it took to get sent down after two weeks on the 2026 Reds, they wouldn't have had a 26-man roster. Yes, it matters that Marte was bad. But it was also clear last offseason he didn't have a long leash. That matters, too.

Jake Necessary (Big Time is my nickname)@shotcallajake.bsky.social

Or that Marte was just awful at the plate this year. Sorry, Reds fan who watched every game except the Fox and Apple TV games this season.

Noelvi Marte was awful at the plate, but so were Matt McLain and Ke'Bryan Hayes and TJ Friedl, who all got more playing time. They were all better defenders, but that was also part of the case against Marte. He *needed* to hit to have a job, and that was never as sure a thing as many thought!

Some guys get the opportunity to hit their way out of a slump, either because they have a track record or have a way of impacting the game beyond their bat or because their team just has faith in them. Marte entered 2026 without any of those things going for him. And he was a 10th-round pick anyway!

fantasy.fangraphs.comMining the News (10/26/26)Trying to catch up on the news, more to come.

I think this is a VERY notable news item @jeffwzimmerman.bsky.social unearthed here. Bonemer is untested above AA, but he had a huge season and there's definitely a more clear path to playing time in the outfield than the infield for the White Sox in 2027.

FanGraphs Baseball@fangraphs.com

RotoGraphs: Mining the News (10/26/26) fantasy.fangraphs.com/mining-the-n...

though it was pretty clear last offseason that the Reds didn't have nearly as much faith in Marte as the Fantasy baseball world did. which is hard to put too much weight on, but there was a similar dynamic with Emmett Sheehan, so it's something to keep in mind for some players.

Sometimes teams just make mistakes, or sometimes they just lie to the media. but the reaction to "why doesn't this team like this player as much as I do" is often to say "because the team is stupid" and yeah I dunno sometimes that's it. but they do *probably* know more than we do, too.

fantasy.fangraphs.comMining the News (10/26/26)Trying to catch up on the news, more to come.

FanGraphs Baseball@fangraphs.com

RotoGraphs: Mining the News (10/26/26) fantasy.fangraphs.com/mining-the-n...

Also in there: Not clear if Noelvi Marte will even have a role for the big-league club in 2027. He was a 10th-round pick in Fantasy this year! What a fall from grace.

I have a slightly hard time buying into this. I don't doubt the Dodgers would like to do this, but given that the Dodgers didn't seem to get much say in Ohtani's playing time when he was clearly hurt, why would it be different when he's healthy? But the risk does need to be baked in.

Sky Kalkman@skykalkman.bsky.social

Sub 600 PA Ohtani?

youtube.comDrafting the First Two Rounds in 2027! | Fantasy Baseball AdviceYouTube video by Fantasy Baseball Today

I don't think this should be enough to take Ohtani out of the first round in Fantasy, necessarily, but this all is why I was pretty skeptical about him as even a top-five pick in our recent "Early 2027 first-two rounds" draft pod: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CidI...

Dodgers' incentive is obvious: "We can maybe keep Ohtani healthier and fresher as a two-way player and also solve some our playing time log jam by freeing up ~25% of our DH starts for Josue De Paula." Less clear why Ohtani would be open to it when healthy when he wasn't open to sitting when hurt?

Sky Kalkman@skykalkman.bsky.social

Sub 600 PA Ohtani?

Ohtani was still a ~$20 player in 2026, so it's not like the bottom completely dropped out. But this kind of outcome -- he hurts himself pitching and either misses a bunch of time as a hitter or is severely hampered by it -- has always been one of the high-risk outcomes for his profile.

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs reposted

Emily St. James

@emilystjams.bsky.social

gizmodo.comElon Musk's AI-Generated 'Odyssey' Is Here to Save Western Civilization“Homer didn’t have Grok. We do.”

Watching this thing suggests all over again that AI-generated art's central failing continues to be that the kinds of people who might use AI tools to make something interesting are the kinds of people who hate the supposed shortcut of using AI tools because they enjoy the work of making art.

violet allen@blipstress.bsky.social

It's funny how the Defenders of Western Civilization really want Odysseus to be this heroic patriarchal figure when he is canonically kind of a dirtbag.

my actual personal insane radiohead take is that I like HAIL TO THE THIEF more than IN RAINBOWS

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs@cptowers.bsky.social

The problem with the Radiohead “01/10” conspiracy theory is that when you actually listen to the albums together like that it just highlights how absolutely insane the people who think IN RAINBOWS is better than OK COMPUTER are.

I actually find myself genuinely confused by the "IN RAINBOWS is the best Radiohead album" movement, because I just don't hear that at all. It's a very good album, but I don't think there's anything it does better than any of their other albums. It's a clear step down from their best work.

If you think Steven Kwan can be a full-time center fielder (and he rated out very well there defensively this season), I think he's probably the best fit for the Yankees this offseason if he's going to be on the market. Not sure any other potential fit even comes close?

So yes, if the cost for Steven Kwan is something like "Spencer Jones + Carlos LaGrange" I'd be very open to that if I was the Yankees. there's some potential that either of those guys makes you regret it in a big way, but the far likelier outcome is neither is all that good.

Kwan will cost a lot and only has one year of club control left, but here's the thing: If the Yankees don't make a real run at Kwan, who is gonna play CF there? There just aren't a ton of viable options out there!

I'm also pretty skeptical that the Yankees are going to seriously consider Luis Garcia anywhere but first, just because we've seen how that looks and I'm not sure he's actually a valuable enough hitter to play somewhere he's a clear defensive liability. But no harm in at least trying it, I guess

But I don't see any way the Yankees could realistically go into next season *planning* to use Spencer Jones as a full-time center fielder or Luis Garcia Jr. as a non-1B. If you want to have them as potential contingencies in spring, that's fine. But if either is your Plan A, you screwed up.

nytimes.comTen steps the Yankees should take to reach the World Series in 2027

That's from this piece in The Athletic about 10 things the Yankees should do this offseason: www.nytimes.com/athletic/771...

Paredes is another one that seems like a potentially natural fit in terms of positions and skill set, but it feels like Yankee stadium would be a really narrow needle for him to thread. It's shallow down the lines but gets very deep very quickly. He's VERY park-sensitive.

does cam skattebo know you are allowed to try to avoid contact with a defender occasionally?

"The Star Wars Prequels were generally beloved and respected until 2008" oh my god grow up

okay so I've had a couple of people say that the actors involved in the star wars prequels deserved the attacks and harassment they faced for their parts in the movies, and I'll just say a few of y'all are also losing the plot in a different direction, too.

18h

To be clear, the Gen Zers have absolutely deranged Star Wars opinions and I should never have to be exposed to any of them.

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs@cptowers.bsky.social

This is how the Wemby backlash starts.

18h

We're not quite fully in the heat of the backlash, but former-players-turned-podcasters are starting to come out with "Wemby is overrated" takes, so we're not far. With another deep playoff run in 2027, we'll get there.

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs@cptowers.bsky.social

We're in that sweet spot where everyone (except OKC fans last week, I guess) loves Wemby, and I think we should all appreciate that before everyone starts hating him for stupid reasons, which will happen either within the next two weeks or two years.

okay, so there is a hint that theranos was not real and did not work. it's very brief and subtle, but it occurs when elizabeth holmes goes to jail for fraud on account of the company's product not working. spoiler alert i'm sorry.

"The Star Wars Prequels were generally beloved and respected until 2008" oh my god grow up

people on here will tweet anything. "the phantom menace and the star wars prequels were beloved by the majority of people." no they weren't. that isn't true.

cbssports.com2025 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: Identifying (and avoiding) the "SP Dead Zone" could be the key to victoryThe Fantasy Baseball counterpart to the RB dead zone

I wrote about a lot of this in my (FSWA Best Article Award-winning!) piece about the "SP Dead Zone" here: www.cbssports.com/fantasy/base...

Danny@middaughsome.bsky.social

So based on this a good strategy would be to get 1-2 of the top 12 and then go heavy on hitter and wait on pitching?

But the key caveat to all of this is: You can't build a good pitching staff through the draft. You have to hit on your waiver-wire pickups, because even a good SP draft will have an extremely high bust rate (this is where I've fallen short in the past few years, tbh)

I've written about Rounds 4-10(ish) being the "SP Dead Zone" for Fantasy, and my thought has always been: That's where the truly flawed (but obviously talented) pitchers get pushed up to. your Kyle Bradish/Eury Perez types. Not entirely speculative picks, but largely so.

Sports Fact Lover@lovesportsfacts.bsky.social

So, does it follow then that the predictive values for the very best pitchers in baseball are NOT the same predictive values for very good pitchers in baseball? That doing some sort of piece wise rankings for pitchers could get you a more accurate ranking than using same measurement for all?

THAT BEING SAID The best pitchers in that SP13-24 range in 2026 were Jesus Luzardo and Dylan Cease, which is a pretty big win for "Trust The Process" pitching analysis, because they were two of the biggest FIP underperformers in baseball in 2025.

Sports Fact Lover@lovesportsfacts.bsky.social

Here's a kind of wild stat: In EVERY season from 2022 through 2026, starting pitchers drafted 13-24 at the position were out-earned by those drafted from 25-36.

Combined return of the first three chunks of pitchers in SP over the past six seasons based on the FanGraphs Player Rater values. Fits in with a lot of research I've done over the years, actually.

In 2026, SP13-24 were worth a combined $62.3. $63.3 of that $62.3 were from Luzardo, Cease, and McLean. I'll let you do the math on that.

This is a strike, I don’t see the issue

Jim@jimc5.bsky.social

The debate is generally, “what is a strike“, and it’s ok for that to change

my official take on the check swing discourse is that the current situation is more or less fine, and it doesn't really need to be debated, let alone changed. The system generally works, nobody generally feels like it gives either side too much of a built-in advantage, etc. It's fine!

Your average sports fan genuinely believes there is a crisis of officiating at the highest level of every sport that needs to be fixed, and they believe this mostly because they are hit with a constant barrage of algorithmic rage-bait designed to create outrage (and, thus, engagement)

in some ways this is unfalsifiable, but there's this: MLB umpires call balls and strikes more accurately than ever before. we can prove this. it's not a theory, it is fact also your average baseball fan ABSOLUTELY believes umpiring is in a crisis and has never been worse! incompatible with reality!

Johnny tried to ruin “creep” with the guitar muting in the chorus, and it only made it more successful. Then they tried to make their music increasingly more difficult and offputting and it only made them more successful. And for a long time they just hated it

D.J. Short@djshort.bsky.social

It's pretty wild to hear Thom Yorke talk about OK Computer. The success of that album seemed to be a mindfuck for him.

I totally get how you could think IN RAINBOWS is Radiohead’s best album, because it’s so good that should be any band’s best album. The problem is that Radiohead have at least three clearly better albums.

Chris Towers Missed The Playoffs reposted

mtsw

@mtsw.bsky.social