Every playoff team has its strengths, its weaknesses, its signature skills. We want to find some of the things that will matter most this October. So we're diving into the Statcast data for the teams that are sitting in clear playoff position and picking out some of the most interesting...

Each October, some reliever takes over the postseason. It’s not always the biggest name and star – though it can be – but sometimes, a lesser-known or even out-of-nowhere arm gets hot at exactly the right time in exactly the right games, and ends up pushing his team to greater...

Mason Miller, Jacob Misiorowski and Josh Hader have a whole lot in common. We can start with the fact that they are three of the best pitchers in baseball, elite flamethrowers whose names are synonymous with this era of unprecedented power pitching. Lowest expected ERA, 2026 Min. 50 balls in...

Payton Tolle might be the most energetic pitcher in the league. Sometimes he transfers that energy into pushups on the mound. More often, he transfers it into the baseball. Everything about Tolle is explosive, which is why he's 1) a fan favorite and 2) a frontline starter for a playoff-bound...

The Cubs have the best offense in baseball, and by a large margin, too. It’s actually arguably the best in team history, and this is a team with a lot of history. The Cubs have the best defense in baseball too, by another large margin. That undersells it; they’re going...

Any conversation about the best hitters in baseball in 2026 should begin with the two MVP frontrunners, Yordan Alvarez and Pete Crow-Armstrong. It probably includes some of the game's dynamic young stars, like Junior Caminero and James Wood, as well as the generational talents slugging their way to Cooperstown, like...

In his 16th big league season, 37-year-old Chris Sale may be writing the finest chapter of his storied career. Eight days ago, Sale authored one of his best games ever, blanking the Dodgers in a complete-game shutout. Sale struck out 11 hitters -- his 95th career game with double-digit strikeouts,...

Tyler Glasnow needed just two starts to remind everyone the sort of weapon he can be for the Dodgers in October. The L.A. right-hander completed seven innings of one-run ball in a breezy 6-1 victory on Sunday, his second outing since returning from a three-and-a-half month stint on the IL...

Nolan McLean, the prized right-hander known for generating outlier horizontal movement and spinning the baseball at absurd levels, has lost his sweeper. And no one is quite sure where it went. “It’s a little tricky whenever your pitch doesn’t move like you’re used to,” McLean said recently inside the Mets’...

This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy's Brewers Beat newsletter, with MLB.com's David Adler filling in for this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox....