Ryan Blake

@swingsandtakes.com

1199 Followers 169 Following

Baseball Writer

A plot showing the Tigers actual wins vs pythag wins. They slumped by both metrics around game 50, but have been scoring more runs than their opponents lately despite not winning games.
A plot showing the Phillies actual vs pythag wins. They've well outperformed their pythag record over the last 70 games.
A plot showing the Houston Astros record relative to .500, both actual wins and pythag wins. They've started winning more lately, but they're also being outscored by their opponents.
A rendering of a possible design for the snail tunnel.
A table showing the Mariners spending on their stadium over the last four years. They have budgeted for $160 million in spending and have spent $135 million; their long-terms needs assessment recommended spending $101 million.
A rolling plot showing Julio and Cal's contributions versus the Mariners over 40 game stretchers in 2025 and 2026. In 2025, Julio and Cal were great and everyone else was just OK. This year, everyone is just OK.
A plot showing the Mariners games above .500 in their playoff seasons.
Pie in face New Yorker cartoon
A plot showing weighted rolling Game Score
A list of the 10 best Game Scores since 2000. Jacob Misiorwoski's 107 mark is tied for fourth with Randy Johnson. The list also includes Scherzer, Kershaw, Cain, Johnson, Misiorowksi, Nomo, Hernández, Scherzer, Cole, and Verlander.
Baseball Savant Outfield Run Value leaderboard for June. Julio tops the list.
Julio ranges in, lets the ball drop, and gets the out at second
An image showing FanGraphs new pitcher game cards
A table showing OAA for pitchers, sorted in reverse. Detmers has -5 OAA from the defense, which is bottom five in the majors.
A video of Lawrence Butler flying out, cut to a helmet, presumably Butlers, flying across the infield and into the A's dugout.
The Rays rolling win-rate plot
A park factor chart for T-Mobile Park showing lefty fly balls.
A plot showing cumulative wRAA, split by handedness.
A plot showing the Mariners rolling wOBA, split by handedness, over last 15 games. Mariners have been strong against righties all year. They've been much worse against lefties for most of the year.
A table showing times through the order splits for the Mariners starters. As a group, they are best in the bigs on the first pass. They are among the worst on the third pass.
Screen shot of the park factors at T-Mobile Park over the last few years. The stadium is seeing a lot more homers and doubles than it typically does.
The album cover for Miles In The Sky.
Mitch Garver hits a walk off homer and flips his bat in disgust.
Mitch Garver's launch angle distribution for 2026. He's hitting the ball above the ideal HR angles.
Rob Manfred portrait
Victor Robles makes a diving catch coming in against the A's.
Victor Robles makes a diving catch in the outfield against the A's.
A plot showing Andrés Muñoz FIP by season, split by left and right.
A screen capture of the NCAA baseball tournament regionals group with Wazzu, Oregon State, Oregon, and Yale.
Elly De La Cruz launch angle distribution from the squared up explorer.
A plot showing the Mariners record in one-run games in 2025 and 2026.
A New Yorker cartoon of three men at a poker table. The caption reads: "No, Al, you can't just 'stake your reputation' on it."
ROOT Sports broadcast graphic showing hard hit rate in 2026.
FanGraphs squared up rate explorer for Mitch Garver, showing most of his batted balls are hit with higher than 40 degrees of launch, and less than 0 degrees of launch.
A video of Colt Emerson's dad watching his son's first homer
Buncha Mariners fans having a good ol' time after Julio's homer.
A plot showing rolling 30-game win rate for the Mariners in 2023, 2025, and 2026.
A plot showing the Mariners distance from .500 at home and away in 2025. They were about .500 at both for most of last season, before wracking up a bunch of wins at home and losses on the road.
Mike Trout rolling strikeout rate plot. He's struck out 40% of the time over his last 15 games.
Andrew Alvarez strikes out Gunnard Henderson on a nice slider. Henderson slams his bat in disgust.
Dan Wilson in the dugout, looking off into the distance, lips pressed, arms crossed.
The Astros lineup card tonight, featuring the Care Bears
A pitch chart for Luke Raley's grand slam: Whiff, whiff, dinger
Comment on FanGraphs: Raley may run like a giraffe, but giraffes are sneaky fast, and Statcast has the big lug logging a 73-percentile sprint speed. Of course, unlike the giraffe, Raley cannot maintain top speed for a mile.
Whiff Rate vs. xwOBACON for 2026. Luke Raley is an outlier.
A photo of a game between Gonzaga and WSU at Patterson Sports Complex in Spokane
The tOPS+ leaderboard for starting pitchers with at least 5 starts in 2026. Logan Webb is second on TTO 2 with a 193 tOPS+.
Cal Raleigh appears to take a foul ball ricochet in the beans
Young Thug tweet: I hate when GIRLS die
Landen Roupp looks in for the sign on April 26, 2026, against the Miami Marlins.
Landen Roupp in 2026 on the left, standing way off to the side of the rubber; Landen Roupp in 2025 on the right, standing pretty much right in the middle
A plot showing MLB walk rate over 7-day averages.
Tristan Gray makes nice running catch, falling over a tarp in left field.
A plot showing wOBA by a batter’s average escape velocity. Batters who hit the ball harder can aim higher.
Danny Hultzen, James Paxton, and Taijuan Walker pose in Mariners jerseys in 2012.
Gabe Speier re-entering the bullpen after confusion in 2025 about whether he was actually supposed to enter the game.
Lawrence Butler catches a fly out from Cole Young and drops the ball in center field before jogging off the field. He flashes a big grin as he jogs.
A plot showing the Mariners 25-game win streaks in 2022 & 2025
A screen shot of the Tri-City Herald's website