The 2003 Detroit Tigers were a shining beacon of bad baseball. This was true both as a team — they lost 119 games, the second-most of any MLB team since 1901 — and also at the individual level. Hapless starter Mike Maroth, for instance, became the only pitcher to lose 20 times in a season […]
The 2018 MLB season could end up being defined by a lot of things, including the possibility of even more tinkering to the baseball, an epic spate of strikeouts or the disappointing performance of the league’s supposed superteams. But most likely, we’ll remember 2018 as the year tanking dominated baseball’s landscape like never before. Not […]
It was the trade that almost wasn’t (but then was). Just as talks between the Houston Astros and Detroit Tigers over ace pitcher Justin Verlander looked like they were breaking down Thursday, news broke overnight that the two clubs had agreed to terms — Verlander would be headed to Houston after all, as part of […]
It was the trade that almost wasn’t (but then was). Just as talks between the Houston Astros and Detroit Tigers over ace pitcher Justin Verlander looked like they were breaking down Thursday, news broke overnight that the two clubs had agreed to terms — Verlander would be headed to Houston after all, as part of […]
In honor of the 2017 Major League Baseball season, which starts April 2, FiveThirtyEight is assembling some of our favorite baseball writers to chat about what’s ahead. Today, we focus on the American League West with Deadspin editor-in-chief Tim Marchman and FiveThirtyEight baseball columnist Rob Arthur. The transcript below has been edited. EXPECTED NUMBER OF […]