Baseball in October

A season is 162 games of averages; the postseason is a few weeks of aces, bullpens and short series. How much does the game change, and who rises to it?

The postseason · 1903–2025

How Different Is October?

Twenty-four measures of postseason baseball set against the regular season, every year since 1903: scoring, strikeouts, bullpen innings, which arms get the ball, tactics, home field and upsets. Pooled ten seasons at a time with error bars, against every game or the playoff teams’ own seasons: an honest ledger of what changes in October, and what doesn’t.

From the MLB Stats API’s team, pitcher, schedule and standings data, with league totals checked against Baseball-Reference · sources

October pitching · 2024 to now

Yamamoto in October

Every batter Yoshinobu Yamamoto has faced in the postseason, one square each: the 2024 rookie run, 2025’s two complete games and the World Series Game 7 he won the night after starting Game 6, and the 2026 run as it happens. Then his Octobers against his regular seasons and every postseason since 1903.

From the MLB Stats API’s game feeds and every postseason line since 1903, and Baseball Savant’s Statcast data, checked against Baseball-Reference · sources

A career, in full

One pitcher, one team, eighteen seasons: what it looks like when a great career is laid end to end.

One career · 2008–2025

Eighteen Seasons in Blue

Clayton Kershaw’s eighteen Dodgers seasons on one full-height chart: his ERA against the league’s, innings and strikeouts, with every award, ERA title, milestone and injured-list stint above them. Then his pitch mix and fading fastball, where he ranks among the 311 pitchers since 1920 with 2,000 innings, and an honest look at October: 4.62 there, 2.53 in the regular season.

From the MLB Stats API’s season lines, game logs, awards and every pitcher since 1920, and Baseball Savant’s pitch data, checked against Baseball-Reference · sources

Basketball, by the dollar

What a contract is worth against what the player gives back, measured as a share of the salary cap so contracts decades apart can be compared.

NBA contracts · 2026 and all time

The Bargain Bin

LeBron James for $4 million a year, priced against every notable 2026 signing and a shortlist of the great steals of salary-cap history with one number, surplus cap points: the value a player delivers beyond his salary, as a share of that season’s cap.

Fair salaries from BasketballValues’ FairSalary; historical salaries, caps and Win Shares from Basketball-Reference · the method