Mike Petriello

This piece originally ran in 2021 on the 40th anniversary of Fernando Valenzuela's incredible rookie season, when he became the first player to win Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young Award in the same season. It is being resurfaced in light of the news of his passing.

In an October version of baseball that is increasingly ruled by how often you can roll out your filthiest relievers – where “starters” very much means only that – there’s an unexpected yet fascinating question to be asked: Why does it seem like all of the most dominating relievers in

The Dodgers and Yankees each made it to their respective League Championship Series, and they combined to win three of the first four games of those series, and yet they each had a similar question to answer: Why have our biggest hitting superstars not done a whole lot so far?

We all know that the Mets-Dodgers National League Championship Series is going to be portrayed as something of a David vs. Goliath, given the very different expectations of these clubs entering the 2024 season. But that might not be quite accurate. For one thing, for all the talk about the

When we learned that the Yankees and Royals would be facing off in the best-of-five American League Division Series, we were excited to see some of the most high-powered sluggers alive – like, of course, Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto – get a chance to hit in

In last year’s National League Division Series, the 100-win Dodgers didn’t lose to the 84-win D-backs because of rust collected during the bye. It was largely because Arizona played well and neutralized the Dodgers' best bats – can’t forget to give credit to a team that made it to the

Congrats to the Dodgers, Guardians, Phillies and Yankees, who performed well enough for six months this season to earn a first-round bye past the Wild Card round. That gave them time to rest and reset their rotations – all while entirely avoiding the risk that their seasons might come to

Paul Skenes, in the midst of one of the most impressive rookie pitching seasons in decades, releases his 99 mph four-seam fastball from 5.7 feet high, just a tick under the Major League average of 5.8 feet. Jeremiah Estrada, a breakout San Diego reliever who struck out 13 consecutive hitters

Back in March, the Dodgers and Padres kicked off the 2024 Major League season against one another in South Korea, splitting a pair of games. Six months and 310 total games later, they’ll face off for three more in Los Angeles beginning Tuesday (10:10 p.m. ET/7:10 PT on TBS and

Alyson Footer, moderator/editor: We’re all still basking in the glow of Shohei Ohtani’s mind-boggling performance in Miami on Thursday that had everyone buzzing. Most headlines contain some form of the phrase “Best game ever?” or “Best game ever!” So let’s discuss: Ohtani’s game -- which, to review, resulted in him