Newsletter Excerpt, September 5, 2026 -- "Thinking Inside the Box"

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Guardians 7, Tigers 6 (G1)

                 AB  R  H  BI

Rocchio SS        4  2  2   5 2 HR

Guardians 4, Tigers 3 (10 inn.) (G2)

                 AB  R  H  BI

Bazzana PH-DH     3  1  2   3 HR

We can put a bow on the 2026 Tigers’ season now. They blew a 6-1 lead in the first game and a late 3-1 lead in the second to end any hopes of a 2024-style comeback. They fell to 64-77, ten games back of the White Sox in the Central, 7 1/2 out in the AL wild-card race. Even I can’t keep pointing to their run differential and their third-order record, still both fourth in the circuit. The Tigers are 56-28 when tied or leading after six innings. That’s the second-most losses and second-worst winning percentage in baseball; only the Angels are worse.

Scott Harris built a bad bullpen that produced a 13-25 record in one-run games, 17-26 record in 1/x games. Then he quit on the team he’d built when it had pushed into contention in July, trading 40% of the starting rotation at the deadline. 

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Newsletter Excerpt, September 4, 2026 -- "Thrilladelphia Weekend"

 This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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The Phillies host the Braves in a four-game wraparound series this weekend, then go to Atlanta for three next weekend. The Phillies have been in chase mode since April, when they lost five of six to the Braves as part of a 9-19 start that led to Rob Thomson’s firing. The Braves moved into first place on April 8 and have been there ever since, up by as many as 10 1/2 games at one point. The Phillies cut the Braves’ lead to two games a number of times in July, but the Braves are 28-17 in the second half and head into the weekend up four games on the Phils.

There are real stakes here. The NL East winner is in good position to be the NL #2 seed and avoid having to play in the wild-card round. The NL runner-up is going to have to play a Cubs team that has the best offense in baseball, the third-best run differential, and the fourth-best third-order record. That gap is massive in terms of championship equity. Even being the #3 seed means you avoid the Cubs and play a considerably less-accomplished opponent.

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Newsletter Excerpt, September 2, 2026 -- "Something Fishy?"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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The post-deadline Marlins have been getting by with pitching. Their starters, led by Alcantara, have a league-leading 2.67 ERA since the deadline. (Their 3.64 FIP is seventh.) All five starters have ERAs of 3.46 or lower, FIPs of 4.24 or lower. Getting good work from the anonymous back end of Janson Junk, Tyler Phillips, and Ryan Gusto has been their biggest edge in the wake of season-ending injuries to Meyer, Robby Snelling, and top prospect Thomas White. That the Marlins have been able to get such good work from no-names would seem to be an endorsement of the Marlins’ decision to call pitches from the dugout, a controversial practice that is nonetheless gaining a foothold.

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Newsletter Excerpt, September 1, 2026 -- "Dan Wilson Returns"

 

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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A manager’s first job, above all else, is to put his players in position to succeed. In the tenth inning last night, Wilson repeatedly put his players in position to fail, and in doing so showed a total lack of understanding of game state. The Robles bunt, the choice of Criswell, walking the bases loaded...that’s a stack of errors you just don’t see any more. Wilson, though, is falling deeper and deeper into a hole. I don’t want to argue he cost the Mariners the game -- Bazardo’s inability to close out hitters and Rodriguez’s misplay did more damage -- but how he managed the tenth did make it more likely they would lose.

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Newsletter Excerpt, August 31, 2026 -- "Oh, Canada?"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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The Jays, who traded Kevin Gausman and Daulton Varsho at the deadline, are 16-10 since then, and have won 14 of their last 22. An offense that was bottom-five in MLB for four months (.243/.305/.380, 92 wRC+), with the worst isolated power in the league (136 SLG - AVG), hasn’t hit for any more power -- a 134 ISO, even worse -- but has picked up almost 20 points of BABIP while striking out even less. The Jays have a 99 wRC+, middle of the pack, in August, and a 110 mark, fourth in the game, since August 7. It looks, in fact, a little bit like the offense they rode to 94 wins last year:

                  AVG   OBP   SLG    K%  BABIP   ISO

2025             .265  .333  .427   18%   .298  .162

2026 since 8/7   .271  .333  .413   18%   .310  .143

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Newsletter Excerpt, August 25, 2026 -- "Hunter Greene and Paul Skenes"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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Skenes knows about The Demon, and he’s making changes to stay out of its clutches. Sitting 97, and more than that struggling with command and location of his many secondary pitches, Skenes has had the roughest stretch of his career since the middle of May: a 5.06 ERA and 3.31 FIP in 17 starts. His average four-seamer has come in at 96.7 mph in that time. What doesn’t come up as much is what happened before that: Skenes started the year with a 1.98 ERA and 2.48 FIP in nine starts...and his four-seamer averaged 97.2 mph. For all the focus on this midseason slump and the concomitant loss of velocity, no one noticed that Skenes had dialed back his four-seamer without any loss of effectiveness for almost two months from Opening Day. 

Paul Skenes hasn’t lost velocity. Paul Skenes intentionally dialed back his velocity in an attempt to not end up like Hunter Greene.

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