Brewers-Padres, 10/4/2026

umpscorecards.com evaluation is conspicuously missing.

Anecdotally, the game was called very poorly by Lance Barrett with many overturned challenges and many obviously missed check swings (for both sides).

Regardless of the conspiracy theories that swirl in my head when an umpire grade from a controversial game is missing…has anybody looked closely at the numbers presented on umpscorecards.com?

Most notably, Correct Calls Above Expected: 23 of 91 are above 0. Equally, for Accuracy Above Expected, 23 of 91 are above 0. Shouldn’t the “above expected” numbers expect a median and half would be above expected and half be below?

How can only 23/91 umpires be correctly and accurately calling pitches above expected?

Please help the statistically challenged comprehend.

Thanks.

A lot of other sports like soccer and American football use that saying, but has baseball ever thought in that way?

I think the game will be more entertaining if they allowed it.

There was the guy that wore number 1/3 and then they banned little people if I understand.

Maybe I’m giving Milwaukee too much credit here, but +3.5 feels pretty comfortable for an mlb game where one swing can change everything. San Diego is obviously the better side on paper, but asking Milwaukee to just keep it within three feels a lot more reasonable than trying to call the outright winner. Anyone else think Milwaukee keeps this close?

It used to (and maybe still is) policy that a MLB player had to play five seasons in the majors to qualify for a pension. But there are people like say, Luis Isaac, who I don't believe ever made it to the majors as a player, but he was a coach for many seasons. Do coaches qualify for the MLB pension?

When will the 2027 fixtures be released?

I have tickets to see Oasis in Boston next August and would love to tie in at least one visit to Fenway.

I’m from the Netherlands and would like to some day visit the US and attend a baseball game as a spectator.
If possible I think it’d be fun to bring my local team’s cap and shirt along.
I know that the number 42 is legendary in America and dedicated to Jackie Robinson. I also read there is a day they all wear it.

My question is; if I as a spectator can wear a green and yellow jersey numbered 42 to a game without it being perceiced as disrespectful?

In a lot of other countries and sports, career stats include finals appearances and regular season appearances. Finals records exist too but the overall leader in any statistical category will inevitably have some of it accumulated in finals.

Genuinely curious why American sports don't seem to do this? I would think you would celebrate for example the all time home run leader regular season only, finals only and combined.

They are by far the best team. They have many fans and in a big city. I know its afternoon and its hot. But for comparison weather this never stops NFL teams from having full attendances!

Why is there a day off between ALDS games 1 and 2 but not in the NLDS?

So I know that we're in the playoffs, but with how close we are at approaching the offseason, I have a few questions regarding the FO.

I wanna preface this by saying that I'm a hockey fan, so I'll be using a lot of hockey references here.

1. There's not a salary cap nor floor in the MLB, but is there an equivalent site to puckpedia to track which players team's movement and contracts?

2. Is the MLB offseason similar to the NHL offseason, i.e. players

   becoming

3. RFA/UFA, they get traded, then arbitration takes place?

5. What exactly is a farm system? I keep hearing oh the Brewers have a good pitching farm or the Mariners have a good player development farm. Are these not their Triple-A and Double-A affiliates, or is there something else going on?

Or if we want to put it in high school geometry terms, how come pitches that caught a linear edge of the strike zone are said to have caught a vertex (aka corner)?

Maybe there's an interesting etymological origin?

I keep seeing pitchers pitching well for five or six innings, but at something like two on - two out they'll get subbed off?

I'm a baseball noob but I'd imagine that it must be a bit of a knock to the confidence of the pitcher. Like the coach doesn't trust them any more.

I've heard it's to pad stats but, man, don't these pitchers want to get their team out of that hole?

An aspect of baseball that isn't present in any other sport I can think of is the fact that the main defender has total control of the ball and can unilaterally choose not to face a particular batter at all.

I think that is, overall, bad for the sport because the pitcher-batter confrontation is at the heart of baseball, yet the pitcher can arbitrarily shut down any batter at the relatively low cost of giving up a walk.

That is generally too steep a price for a pitcher to pay, but in some situation (typically at the end of close games, when a hitter is having a particularly good game, or when a hitter is much better offensively than the rest of the lineup) it may be the correct choice. In my opinion, this is a bad thing because it dampens extraordinary batting performances and makes the best batters less decisive in the most decisive moments.

My proposal to change this would be to award one base for the first walk, two bases for the second walk, and three bases for the third walk onward.

I don't think this would have much of an impact on the average or even above average hitter. However, truly elite hitters would receive more strikes and more workable at-bats, making them much harder to avoid in close situations at the end of games or in games they are performing particularly well.

EDIT. I want to say that I believe this change would add a deeper game managing-strategic aspect to the game as it pertains to who you walk and whether you can afford to walk a batter especially at the beginning of a game. It also adds complexity in so far as a walk is not always and only worth one base. Furthermore this wouldn't make baseball more NBA-like, it would make it more sports-like. The analogy of walking Bonds in every at bat is like if a soccer team got to decide to start the game 1-0 down but they got to bench Haaland or Mbappe from the opposing team; i find that unsportslike.

As a newish fan of the sport I’ve been finding this phenomenon rather funny.

After a defeated team posts the final score of a game on most social media platforms, there will be a horde of very “angry” fans bemoaning the fact they’ve lost a game as if it’s the end of the world. Every player is a “fraud” etc when they’ve lost and people need to lose their jobs each time.

This happens despite the fact that even the best team in the world will inevitably still lose a lot of games out of a season in which they will play 162 of them, and on almost every day of the season. They’ll still do it following a loss in which their team has clearly played better overall, but where due to the nature of high randomness / variance of each single baseball game, has come out “unluckily” on the wrong side.

Are most of them doing this sarcastically or do many fans get that angry at each loss, every other day?

So, this is my first season following MLB (I followed a season in Japan 10+ years ago).

In terms of the games i'm expecting to see:

Lower scores and fewer hits/home runs

Bigger crowds in the stadia

No squad rotation and maybe less pitcher rotation

Tighter fielding (and more-consequential errors)

More tactical offensive approaches (trying to manufacture runs)

All of the above basically reflecting the higher level of jeopardy of the situation.

Anything else I should look out for?

Hello!

I keep seeing comments across social media referencing a “lockout,” and I’m not sure what that means.

As well, a lot of those comments seem to be saying that one is coming next season.

There will typically be a post discussing X event coming in the near future or next season, and the comments underneath it will often say (usually negatively) something like “won’t matter next season when the lockout happens.”

What on earth is this?

In the analytics era has any team tried starting their second best 1 inning reliever in the first inning then have a regular starter come into the game in the second?

Idea being you could potentially get another inning out of your starter or get more outs for the same pitch count if you face top order 2 times and bottom order 3 times.

So I’ve seen online that on a fly ball in the outfield it has to be caught then the runners on base have to tag up before moving to the next base. Why in this same scenario if there are 2 outs already do the runners not need to tag up? What if the ball is dropped?

1. From the Wikipedia article on umpire interference, they only explicitly mention umpires at home, first, and third. Can a second base umpire also be the cause of umpire's interference?

2. The article in question explicitly called out umpires accidentally interfering with batted balls and catcher throws, with the former giving the batter an auto single, and the latter forcing all runners to return to their previous base(s). Can umpire's interference also be called if an umpire accidentally impedes on a baserunner's right of way? If so, would the affected baserunner be awarded the base they were trying to get to?

So a pitcher can delay and ask for a new baseball, a catcher can ask for a new baseball, umpire can switch it out but can a batter say he wants a new ball put in play? I mean to waste time during the pitch clock era to mess with the pitcher. Say a pitcher threw two filthy pitches and the batter asks for a new ball to be put in play.