The Weekly Windup: MLB Week in Review - June 8th - June 15th
Recapping the week in baseball, updating rankings, and discussing some notable stats
Each week—published on Sunday evenings—I write a short recap of the past week in baseball, provide updated Elo ratings, team rankings, and pitcher power ratings. I also highlight one or two interesting stats that caught my eye over the course of the week.
A week that includes Yankees-Red Sox and Giants-Dodgers is sure to be a good one, and that is what we had this past week. The Red Sox are trying to right the ship on what has been a disappointing season thus far, and they took steps toward doing so in sweeping the reigning league champions in Boston. Friday’s matchup featured a classic in a 2-1 extra-inning battle, punctuated by a Carlos Narvaez walk-off in the 10th. Elsewhere, the Diamondbacks continue to battle after learning they would be losing their ace Corbin Burns for the season to Tommy John surgery. The snakes rallied to an 8-7 victory after a five-run ninth inning against the Padres on Saturday. Just three days earlier, Eugenio Suarez hit a monster grand slam to propel the D-Backs to a 5-2 victory over the Mariners, a homer which bumped him up to third on the Venezuelan-born home run leaderboard. Arizona jumped 25 points in Elo this week, rising from 16th to 12th in the rankings
Tarik Skubal continues to dominate the AL and remains comfortably atop our pitcher power ratings. Garret Crochet, now second in the rankings, lowered his ERA to 2.24 in his start against the Yankees and owns an MLB-leading 117 strikeouts. Just to re-emphasize the magnitude of Corbin Burnes’s injury for the Diamondbacks, he currently ranks as the 11th-best pitcher.
Stat of the Week
6: The San Francisco Giants won six consecutive one-run game on Tuesday, besting the Rockies 6-5 in Denver. No team has won six consecutive one-run games since the 1989 California Angels. This stretch of victories raised the Giants’ playoff odds 21%, per FanGraphs.
Team of the Week
Texas Rangers: Heading into Sunday, the Rangers have won three in a row and seem to be finding their groove at the plate. Since last Sunday, the Rangers have increased their FanGraphs playoff odds 10.2%, up to 28% at the time of writing. The team was horrendous offensively to start the season, holding a batting average of just .223 on Memorial Day, ranking 28th out of 30 MLB teams. Over the past week, the team is hitting .297, second-best in baseball, and hold a league-best wRC+ of 157, seven points higher than the second-place Mets. The 2023 World Series champs appear to be getting back on track
Player of the Week
Jacob Misiorowski: Milwaukee’s top pitching prospect made his major league debut on Friday, pitching a dominant 5 no-hit innings. Misiorowski struck out five Cardinals batters and reached 101.1 MPH on his fastball en-route to one of the best debuts in baseball history. Only eleven starting pitchers in major league history have failed to surrender a hit in a start of at least 5 innings. The most recent before Misiorowski was Emmet Sheehan in 2023 for the Dodgers. Misiorowski is just the fourth of those eleven to earn the win, and only two of those have struck out more.
Fathers Day Special
Today is Father’s Day. Based on my research, there are currently ten second-generation players in the MLB. Seven of those pairings have mounted a combined 25 WAR or more.1
Cavan Biggio (Royals) & Craig Biggio (Combined 71.7 WAR)
Vlad Guerrero Jr. (Blue Jays) & Vladimir Guerrero (Combined 67.5 WAR)
Jackson Holliday (Orioles) & Matt Holliday (Combined 50.3 WAR)
Jack Leiter (Rangers) & Al Leiter (Combined 36.9 WAR)
Fernando Tatis Jr. (Padres) & Fernando Tatis Sr. (Combined 30.2 WAR)
Bo Bichette (Blue Jays) & Dante Bichette (Combined 26.1 WAR)
Cody Bellinger (Yankees) & Clay Bellinger (Combined 25.2 WAR)
Using FanGraphs WAR. The others are Paul and Cal Quantrill, Lance Jr. and Lance Sr. McCullers, and Mark Jr. and Mark Sr. Leiter.