In honor of the 2022 Major League Baseball season, which starts April 7 — and is actually a thing! — FiveThirtyEight will be focusing our attention on the most intriguing team (or in this case, teams) in each division. Today we take a look at the American League West, which has mostly belonged to the […]
With a pair of home runs against the New York Yankees in the Bronx on Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani continued what has been nothing less than a remarkable 2021 season. Ohtani’s homers — Nos. 27 and 28 on the year — vaulted him into the MLB lead ahead of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and gave him […]
Even before his much-anticipated move from Japan to America in the offseason of 2017-18, baseball fans knew that Shohei Ohtani had virtually unlimited potential as a two-way talent. The biggest question was simply whether his situation — and his durability — would allow him to live up to that promise and become MLB’s first true […]
When the Minnesota Twins burst into the playoffs with 101 wins in 2019 — hitting an MLB-record 307 home runs — they were one of baseball’s most pleasant surprises. When they followed that up with the league’s fourth-best record during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, it seemed to announce that Minnesota was here to stay as […]
First, we talk about Albert Pujols’s release from the Los Angeles Angels, with just one year remaining on his 10-year deal. It’s the kind of contract for an older player that we’re not likely to see again in MLB, although long-term deals do pay off, especially for pitchers — just ask the Nationals about Max […]