last effort: I run a baseball site with some of my best, smartest, and most talented friends. we do fun and engaging work all year long, and it's about to get more expensive to read that work as of 1/1. I'd much rather you get in the door as cheap as possible. It also makes for a great gift:

Nearly every recent NPB hitter to transfer has seen their strikeout rate increase 1.5 percentage points (from their final NPB season to their first MLB campaign). If Murakami follows suit, that would put him over 31%. He’ll need his elite strength to play, and immediately, to provide value.

The Astros, Pirates and Rays are in serious discussions about a trade that would send right-hander Mike Burrows to Houston, infielder Brandon Lowe to Pittsburgh and involve multiple other players, sources tell @ken-rosenthal.bsky.social and me.

Initial news story on the WNBPA voting to authorize a strike "when necessary": www.espn.com/wnba/story/_...

Processing my feelings about umpires closing their eyes pebblehunting.substack.com/p/fright-eyes

White Sox are close to adding former Rays assistant general manager Carlos Rodriguez to their front office. Sounds like he’ll also be an AGM with the Sox. soxmachine.com/2025/12/whit...

My favorite novel.

Bell is more interesting than his career suggests. He added bat speed and deepened his point of contact, leading to more pulled balls in the air—a combo that tends to result in more power. Target Field is more home-run-friendly than the average park. Sneaky overperformance candidate if it all holds.

Friday news dump? I was recently laid off by McClatchy/Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I loved expanding into politics/policy reporting, and pursuing stories about communities underserved by their local paper. Eager for correspondent-level work? Or, have something else in [email protected]

Moving things I liked this year pebblehunting.substack.com/p/beautiful-...

Pete Alonso joins the club.

The White Sox just won MLB’s draft lottery. UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky will enter spring as the favorite to go No. 1. Could be a good class for shortstops overall, though, with prepsters Grady Emerson and Jacob Lombard and Alabama's Justin Lebron in the running for top-five selections.

Things I Tagged Fundies This Year pebblehunting.substack.com/p/the-fundie...

ICYMI: Our rates our going up as of 1/1, making now through 12/31 the absolute best time to lock in a year subscription. You can extend a subscription via the BP360 promotion that's currently available, but that's the only way.

Just ordered mine. I know how much work Matt put into this, and I know how thorough he is. Can't wait to dig in.

Ferrer is an interesting addition for the M's. Throws hard, throws strikes, and generates grounders by the bushel. Easy to envision him making the leap with Seattle.

Josh Byrnes was the assistant GM with the Rockies from 1999-2002, but also was GM and/or EVP with the Padres and D-backs, in addition to th last 11 years as SVP with the Dodgers He's a Giants stint away from pulling a front office Herges/Finley bsky.app/profile/purp...

Between Ponce and Ryan Weiss (Astros), the top two members of the Hanwha Eagles rotation both landed MLB contracts today. KBO continues to be a legitimate way forward for pitchers who want to reestablish themselves.

@daynperry.bsky.social wrote about Rob Manfred. www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/rob...

Here's the nerdy argument for a Devin Williams rebound:

Wrote about the long history of baseball’s salary cap fight, which dates back to the 1800s: www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb...

Wrote about the long history of baseball’s salary cap fight, which dates back to the 1800s: www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb...

Can’t explain why this exchange has stuck in my head for 14 years, but happy anniversary to those who celebrate Brian Cashman responding to a reporter with "blog it." www.espn.com/blog/new-yor...

Little surprise here: Kelsie Whitmore, who helped make history when she debuted with the Sonoma Stompers in 2016 before going on to play for the FerryHawks, Ballers, and Savannah Bananas, is first off the board. She'll rep SF next year.

Rolison is a more interesting addition than his numbers suggest. No guarantees he sticks on the roster all winter, but underlying traits suggest he should be able to add more swing-and-miss to his game. Landing with an org that has a better handle on that stuff should help.

RIP Randy Jones, 75, one of the most beloved players in San Diego Padres history and the 1976 NL Cy Young Award winner. Here's his SABR bio: sabr.org/bioproj/pers...

Mike Elias might be the most hyperrational executive in MLB history when it comes to pitching—for better and for worse. He’s been in charge of the Orioles for seven full years now and he’s never: 1) signed a pitcher to a guaranteed multi-year contract; or 2) drafted a pitcher with a top-50 pick.

ICYMI last night: The WNBA's latest collective bargaining proposal would include revenue sharing with a maximum salary of more than $1.1 million available to more than one player per team growing each year, per the AP and confirmed by ESPN. www.espn.com/wnba/story/_...

There's a reason Marvin Miller used to say "free agency with compensation is not free agency."

Agreed with this. I also think we were overdue for more players accepting the QO. (Less than 10% had taken it entering today.) If you're Grisham or Torres, your market is going to take a real hit with draft-pick compensation. Taking the tender isn’t ideal, but it’s probably the best path forward.

Mo'ne Davis spent years telling people that she was done playing baseball. She did not want to be forever defined by what she did as a 13-year-old in Little League, a decade ago, and she did not feel like there was space for her to do much else. And then she felt differently. On Davis and the WPBL:

Josh Naylor will join Freddie Freeman as the only free-agent first basemen since 2018 to sign for more than four years. Others to do it over the past decade: Eric Hosmer, Chris Davis, and Ian Desmond, per MLB Trade Rumors' contract database.

Sometimes you run across an old quote that stops you cold. From a Jayson Stark article in January 2000:

Good for Andy Pages on getting "championship saving catch" in as a career defining moment before the world heard about "unknowingly foiling gambling plot by swinging at extremely obvious ball"

Murakami checked in at No. 7. Massive power and swing-and-miss issues. Long-term positional questions, too, but he's young and has middle-of-the-order upside in a weaker free-agent class.

DePodesta is, undeniably, a trailblazer directly responsible for the modern executive. He has a whale of a challenge in front of him—modernizing that Rockies organization; solving Coors Field; and so on. Tall task for anyone, let alone somebody nearly a decade removed from an MLB front office.

Here's my ranking of this year's top 50 MLB free agents: www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/ran...

This season had some obvious borderline mythical moments (including Yamamoto last night). But I keep returning to the idea that if a team had given away an owner bobblehead during a disappointing season, say, 50 or 60 years ago, we’d still be referring to that incident by some cutesy name.

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who started Game 6, got more outs in Game 7 than starter Shohei Ohtani

This is the sixth straight season in which a Will Smith wins a World Series:   2025: C Will Smith (LAD) 2024: C Will Smith (LAD) 2023: LHP Will Smith (TEX) 2022: LHP Will Smith (HOU) 2021: LHP Will Smith (ATL) 2020: C Will Smith (LAD)

How could you not be romantic about baseball, the only sport that requires rulebook citing to explain why the league’s best player is (likely) starting the season’s biggest game.

Good stat from @mikeaxisa.bsky.social: "The most swings and misses on a splitter in a single game in the pitch tracking era (since 2008) is 20 by Gausman back in 2023. Only 20 times on record has a guy gotten as many as 15 whiffs on the split in a game. Gausman's at 11 through two innings."

“F the players,” Murray responded, according to the MLBPA documents. “I’m still so pissed off I can’t see straight.” “We need them to be kissed (sic) off at their leadership,” Courtney replied. “Believe me, it is priority for me,” Murray said. www.nytimes.com/athletic/676...

Only 4 pitchers have recorded a Pitcher’s Cycle — striking out every batter in the opposing lineup — in the World Series: Trey Yesavage, 2025 G5 Randy Johnson, 2001 G2 Bob Gibson, 1968 G1 Jesse Barnes, 1921 G6

We, as a society, have not solved much recently. But take heart: Blake Snell no longer gets pulled too early in World Series games.

Twins are hiring Derek Shelton as the new manager. Shelton served as the Twins' bench coach under both Paul Molitor and Rocco Baldelli before leaving after the 2019 season to become the Pirates' manager. Shelton had a 306-440 (.410) record during six seasons in Pittsburgh and was fired in mid-May.

If they're giving Ohtani the full Bonds treatment, at the top of maybe the best lineup in baseball, I think Pedro Feliz, Bengie Molina, Edgardo Alfonzo and J.T. Snow are off the hook

The Dodgers are in the World Series, McCarthyism is back, and there isn't nearly enough housing to go around—all of which makes this a good time to read Stealing Home. www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eric-...

This is Kiké Hernández's 86th postseason game with the Dodgers, which is tied for most in franchise history I enjoyed his reaction to finding that out last week www.truebluela.com/los-angeles-...