Newsletter Excerpt, April 14, 2026 -- "Thinking Inside the Box -- Game of the Year?"

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Did they play the Game of the Year last night?

Yankees 11, Angels 10

         1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9   R  H  E

Angels   0  0  0   4  0  3   1  2  0  10 12  1

Yankees  2  2  0   0  3  1   0  0  3  11 14  1

Maybe they did, but the year, perhaps, was 2017. With the April weather turning warm, finally, we saw 144 runs scored, all in regulation, across ten MLB games. There were 37 home runs hit. The league OPS jumped eight points in one day, from 693 to 701. 

This was the first contest of 2026 in which both teams reached ten runs in a nine-inning game. It had three ties and two lead changes. The most 2017 thing about it? It lasted three hours and 36 minutes, just the 22nd nine-inning game to run over 3:30 since the pitch clock was introduced in 2023. The Yankees have played two of them in the last two weeks, including a 3:49 game April 4 that is the longest nine-inning game of the pitch clock era.

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, April 13, 2026 -- "The Best-Laid Plans..."

 

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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So what do you do here? Alcantara has seen his two-seamer get rapped for a pair of singles. He’s no doubt seen the numbers that show Dingler has had most of his MLB success against two-seamers and change-ups. On the other hand, Alcantara’s putaway pitch this year has been that changeup, and Dingler just barely nicked it on 0-2.

For all of the advances we’ve made in analyzing baseball, in figuring out the most effective way to get a strike, retire a batter, hang a zero, throw six strong innings, the biggest moments will often come down to the same choice pitchers might have made in 1976: my strength or his weakness? Make that choice, and then it just comes down to, as clichéd as this is now, executing a pitch.

Alcantara went with his change-up, but it was poorly located, up and over the inside corner. Dingler got his hands in, caught the ball out in front and hit it 404 feet for three runs. He broke the game open and broke, 20 minutes in, my plans of writing up a pitcher’s duel.

 

Newsletter Excerpt, April 9, 2026 -- "Thinking Inside the Box"

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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Cardinals 6, Nationals 1

                 AB  R  H  BI

Walker RF         4  1  1   1 HR

Is this finally happening? Jordan Walker’s fifth homer of the season, to the deepest part of Nats Park, was his fourth in five games. That includes a grand slam over the weekend in Detroit that landed somewhere north of Windsor. Walker is hitting .295/.367/.682, with a 14/5 K/BB and a 29% strikeout rate.

There are mixed signals in the underlying numbers. Walker is finally putting the ball in the air, with the highest flyball rate and lowest groundball rate of his career. What he’s not doing is hitting the best kind of fly balls, with a 3.3% pulled-flyball rate that ranks 247th among 265 qualified hitters. Digging into his swing data, you can see that he’s swinging “up” more, with an 8% attack angle that’s the highest of his career, without sacrificing swing speed to do it. This is what we’ve been hoping to see from Walker for a long time, him getting the ball in the air and letting his strength do the rest.

What you hope is that we’re in the middle of the process. Walker has adjusted his bat path to hit the ball up, and what will come next is catching the ball in front more often so as to hit more of those flies to the pull side. Walker has enough power to center and right to be productive hitting to all fields. It’s a tougher way to make a living, though. You want oppo power to be part of the mix without carrying the profile. 

I think we’re seeing a hot stretch from a hitter who is still a work in progress. The 1050 OPS isn’t real, but the higher flyball rate is. Walker will vary widely around the mean this year but end up hitting .270/.335/.490 or so and finish the season as a completely new hitter compared to 2025, set to enter a extended peak a bit like George Springer’s (.274/.364/.491, 131 OPS+) from 25 to 29, or Derrek Lee’s (.288/.376/.530, 134 OPS+) at the same ages.

Newsletter Excerpt, April 8, 2026 -- "Lineups"

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This is utterly ridiculous treatment of one of the best hitters the Marlins have had this decade. Caissie is 23. He hasn’t had remotely enough experience to determine whether he should be platooned. Blocked at the MLB level, Caissie spent the last two seasons, at ages 21 and 22, in Triple-A. He hit .251/.368/.414 against lefties in 269 PA, with a 30% strikeout rate and an 80/36 K/BB. That is, in fact, evidence that Caissie should be a two-way player. I think you can be a little concerned about his strikeout rate while acknowledging that he has done nothing to warrant being platooned out of the gate.

Caissie is in that platoon with Austin Slater, who was unemployed three weeks ago when the Tigers let him go. Slater, 33, has a reputation as a lefty-killer, but he hasn’t been that guy for a while. Since the start of 2024, Slater is hitting .195/.290/.300 against southpaws. The only skill that was keeping him on MLB rosters is one he doesn’t seem to possess anymore. Playing him over Caissie is nonsensical.

 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, April 6, 2026 -- "Mason K. Miller"

 

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 order of events aside, Miller is off to a ridiculous start. He’s faced 15 batters over four outings and struck out 11 of them. A third of his 60 pitches have been delivered at 100 mph or more. Batters have swung 30 times at Miller’s pitches and put three balls in play, just two to the outfield. He hasn’t allowed a ground ball yet. Miller has thrown 31 sliders; batters have swung at them 13 times and missed on nine of those attempts. Miller has a 75% strike rate so far, delivering all that nastiness without issuing many walks (one). 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, April 3, 2026 -- "Konnor Time"

 

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.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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When he takes the field today, Griffin, who turns 20 later this month, will be the first teenager to play in the majors since Rule 5 reliever Elvis Luciano in 2019. He’ll be the first teenaged MLB hitter since Juan Soto in 1998 -- not the worst comp to have. Throughout baseball history, just making the majors as a teenaged hitter has been a signature of some of the greatest players to ever play the game. That’s a lot to put on Griffin, of course, but it’s the track he’s taking.