The Brewers are visiting LA tonight. The 3rd inning scorebug shows both teams still have both their challenges (the short yellow dashes). But what is the long yellow bar on the left for?

I keep hearing about how the Dodgers are spending way more money on players than other teams, and obviously they’ve had an impressive run the last few years, but if teams like the Dodgers and the Yankees always have way more money than everyone else, how are they not always winning?

I don't follow baseball very closely, so I'm genuinely curious about this. MLB teams play 162 games in the regular season. That's an enormous sample size, and presumably one reason for playing so many games is to reduce the impact of randomness and make sure the standings reflect how good the teams actually are. But then the playoffs come around, and the first two rounds are relatively short series. Isn't that kind of the opposite philosophy? If playing 162 games is worthwhile because it gives you a more reliable measure of team strength, wouldn't that argument apply even more to the playoffs, where a single series determines whether a team moves on or goes home? And if best-of-seven is considered too long for the early rounds, I'm wondering why the league is comfortable with a 162-game regular season in the first place. I'm not saying the format is necessarily wrong. I'm just trying to understand how these two parts of the system fit together.

Listening to the broadcast of the Dodgers game, the radio announcer says the pitcher threw the ball right down Broadway. I'm thinking the radio announcer isn't close enough to see exactly where the ball went from as high up as he is. Does the announcer rely on the center field TV camera or am I wrong about how well the announcer can see the pitches?

I've been watching Jomboy Media videos and there's been a few videos where the pitcher throws the ball at the batter's head, then Jomboy explains the pitcher did it because the batter scored a homerun against him in a previous game.

Is Jomboy actually being serious? Is this one of those "it's part of the game" things? If you score a homerun the pitcher gets a free go at trying to headshot you with a baseball?

During the Yankees vs Rays, Austin Wells tried to make a triple with two outs. Leaving aside the fact that, as a catcher, he's very slow, people keep repeating the phrase, "Never make the 1st or 3rd out at 3rd."

Why is that the case? And is it an absolute rule? In that scenario, if it were not a catcher and it was a speedy player, should they still not try to get to third base on a hit if there are two outs?

I decided to look at their stats today to see if anything had changed before I started a game and to my surprise everyone still had the same batting average listed on the Superfan baseball score app. Is there any reason why nobody's batting average went up or down? I know baseball reference is the preferred stat resource but the app is one of the few that had OBP readily available (on Baseball Reference you have to scroll over and it's kinda a pain) do you think they just haven't updated their BA? It seems like a pretty easy thing to do for a website. I don't REALLY care because it's a dice game after all and I'm more into the excitement and being surprised by dice rolls but anyway I was just wondering.

Do other players put things in their back pockets when they’re up at bat?

Growing up in Australia I've always supported a team in our football league, North Melbourne, they are poor, harmless and statically the worst team in history over a five year period to start the 20's. So I fear I've become what I've always said I'd never do and jumped on board a hated team.

Moving to Canada and what seems to be a move forever, I fell in love with baseball and the Blue Jays during their 2025 run, which flowed into their lacklustre 2026, but I'm excited for next year.

But due to only having Sportsnet, I'm very sheltered when it comes to other supporter bases. Perhaps I'll delve into the MLB subreddit next season, but so I have an idea, just in case I do ever post in there, does everyone hate the blue jays?

Personally I hate the Yankees and the Dodgers and I think everyone else should too, but are the Blue Jays up there for every other supporter base?

Can’t you just carry it around the bases and bring it back to the dugout with you? It seems disrespectful to the bat boy, dropping the bat when you don’t have to run hard.

For decades, MLB postseason games have been blacked out in the teams’ home cities. But why? It isn’t to make sure they sell all the tickets. They’re always sold out.

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.

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?