FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: August 8, 2026

On Friday, the Boston Globe ran a narrative by Pink Sox beat author Alex Speier on the idea of momentum. I can hear the collective groans of our Members now. Haven’t we gone over this sufficient? We’ve already established that there’s no such factor as momentum! Or, if there’s, its impact is minimal. Our readers could be the primary to level out that the month-and-a-half lengthy surge up in Boston is generally a matter of a proficient, drastically underperforming Sox group experiencing some critical constructive regression, bringing its total document again as much as about the place we anticipated it to be all alongside. I get that, after all. We can’t conclusively show the impact of momentum in baseball — and it’s not for lack of attempting — and so subsequently can’t definitively say that it exists. But in the case of the Huge Mo, a palpable feeling reasonably than a tangible metric, I are inclined to subscribe to what I name the Robert Graysmith Concept: Simply because you possibly can’t show it, doesn’t imply it isn’t true.

What’s attention-grabbing about Speier’s piece is that he, together with Globe staffers Julian Benbow and Daigo Fujiwara-Smith, appeared for information to help the impression of momentum on successful and dropping streaks. Speier, an analytically savvy author, mentioned in his Bluesky publish sharing the story that he “was skeptical” that their search would result in something. As a substitute, he was astonished to study that, as he writes within the story, “A Globe evaluation of Retrosheet information that features the end result of each MLB sport from 1901 by means of 2025 revealed a placing sample: The longer a successful streak lasts, the upper a group’s successful share within the subsequent sport.” The inverse is true for dropping streaks. Speier mentions a number of components unrelated to momentum that assist to elucidate why “baseball streaks are typically considerably self-sustaining,” most notably that group high quality in all probability performs a significant position in enduring stretches of successful or dropping. That alone is sufficient of a cause to keep up any skepticism you might have towards the thought of momentum. However on the identical time, we should always acknowledge that many gamers consider within the energy of momentum, and if that perception influences how they really feel, and the way they really feel contributes to how they carry out, then it stands to cause that momentum — or at the very least, their perception in momentum — has at the very least some impression on efficiency.

That’s the final we’ll be discussing momentum right here, although I’d encourage you to learn everything of Speier’s story after you’ve completed studying this mailbag. As a substitute, as we speak we’ll be answering your questions on gamers to be named later, the groups that the majority improved (or diminished) their 2027 playoff odds with their strikes at this season’s commerce deadline, and the place Pete Crow-Armstrong would stack up on the five-star catches leaderboard if we had Statcast information going again by means of baseball’s historical past. However earlier than we do, I’d prefer to remind you that this mailbag is unique to FanGraphs Members. Should you aren’t but a Member and want to hold studying, you possibly can join a Membership right here. It’s one of the simplest ways to each expertise the location and help our workers, and it comes with a bunch of different nice advantages. Additionally, when you’d prefer to ask a query for an upcoming mailbag, ship me an e-mail at mailbag@fangraphs.com.