{"id":399783,"date":"2026-01-10T19:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399783\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T19:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T19:52:12","slug":"fangraphs-weekly-mailbag-january-10-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399783\/","title":{"rendered":"FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: January 10, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Chandler-Simpson-SB-Mailbag.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" class=\"size-full wp-image-480019\"  \/>Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Exciting news, everyone! In just about a month\u2019s time, pitchers and catchers will be reporting to their respective spring training sites, with the rhythms of the game beginning once again. And with the start of mitts popping and best-shape-of-my-life boasting, the hopes and fears of baseball to come will be renewed.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, we have plenty of things to give us Certified Baseball Sickos our fix. Four of the top five and six of the top 10 players on Ben Clemens\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/2026-top-50-mlb-free-agents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Top 50 Free Agents rankings<\/a> remain unsigned, including a trio of former Astros teammates in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/kyle-tucker\/18345\/stats\/batting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kyle Tucker<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/alex-bregman\/17678\/stats\/batting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alex Bregman<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/framber-valdez\/17295\/stats\/pitching\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Framber Valdez<\/a>. Also coming soon: the results of the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame election, which will be announced on January 20. As always, Jay Jaffe has been covering the ballot top to bottom with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/blog-roll?category=2026+BBWAA+Ballot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">his indispensable series of player profiles<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll talk a little bit of Hall of Fame today, but through the lens of the best pitchers who never received a Hall of Fame vote. Also in this mailbag, Michael Baumann digs into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/chandler-simpson\/31912\/stats\/batting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chandler Simpson<\/a>, Davy Andrews looks at whether inducing popups is a skill for pitchers, and Dan Szymborski explains which types of players have the widest variance in their ZiPS projections. Before we continue, though, I\u2019d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren\u2019t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership <a href=\"https:\/\/plus.fangraphs.com\/product\/fangraphs-membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">here<\/a>. It\u2019s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/the-state-of-fangraphs-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">bunch of other great benefits<\/a>. Also, if you\u2019d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/fangraphs-weekly-mailbag-january-10-2026\/mailto:mailbag@fangraphs.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">mailbag@fangraphs.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a style=\"text-decoration:none;\" href=\"https:\/\/plus.fangraphs.com\/product\/fangraphs-membership\/?ifgc=article_mailbag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThis Mailbag Article Is Exclusively for Members&#13;\n<\/p>\n<p>To read this mailbag, you must be a FanGraphs Membership. Our player pages, leaderboards, and other data tools, as well as RosterResource, The Board and our glossary, are still available for your unlimited use.<\/p>\n<p>Membership also includes: ad-free browsing, unlimited FanGraphs and RotoGraphs articles, one-click data exports, customizable player page cards, custom leaderboard reports, enhanced Steamer projections, historical ZiPS and Steamer projections, dark and classic site modes, the option to remove photos on the homepage, and FanGraphs Walk-off, your personalized year-end site usage review.<\/p>\n<p>Click Here To Become a Member<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n<\/a>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images Exciting news, everyone! In just about a month\u2019s time, pitchers and catchers will be reporting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-399783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}