“I’ve often wondered what goes into a hot dog. Now I know and I wish I didn’t.”

So goes the line from the famed writer William Zinsser, who toured a factory making the July 4 staple sausages in 1969 and succinctly summarized the human experience of looking too deeply into the composite parts of something enjoyable.

I won’t encourage you to go find out what’s in that hot dog you’re about to slather with chili, mustard and onions this weekend. I’ll just tell you as vaguely as possible: Scraps. Scraps that, altogether, taste good.

Scraps make a baseball season pleasing and mysterious and nauseating too. And I have a platter of them for you today. Look if you dare.

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

The win’s angel of death

He has 12 wins, two more than anyone else in baseball. He is left-handed. He pitches for the Milwaukee Brewers.

He is relief pitcher Aaron Ashby.

Brewers manager Pat Murphy’s preferred close-game guy is charting a track toward some history. I wouldn’t say it’s likely that Ashby is going to finish off the season as MLB’s wins champion, but I definitely wouldn’t have called it likely that he would have a dozen wins in early July. Really, anything is on the board right now, because he’s already in crazy territory.

The Padres’ Adrian Morejon led all relievers in 2025, with 13 wins. In the full season. Roy Face, of the 1959 Pirates, set the MLB record for a reliever with 18 wins — he finished seventh in NL MVP voting that year, a pipe dream to which Ashby can’t reasonably aspire. Ryan Yarbrough, the original “bulk guy” when the Rays kicked off the opener trend, technically established the recent high-water mark for relievers with 16 wins in 2018.

Outside of Yarbrough, though, Morejon’s 13 Ws are the most by a primary reliever since the strike in 1994. Ashby could pick that apart before the All-Star break.

In baseball lingo, Asbhy is the ultimate “vulture,” a term for relievers who snag valuable wins out from under a starting pitcher who didn’t quite last long enough or get run support in time to reap the box score reward. This is a bit of a holdover from a more traditional time of pitching roles, even if it shades Ashby’s own thinking.

“I really don’t know how to describe it. It’s just one of those things,” Ashby told MLB.com in May. “I think I feel good that I haven’t come in with the lead, given up the lead, and then we take the lead [back]. Like, taking a win away from the starter. That’s a really [lousy] way to get a win.”

It does probably feel weird, when teammate Jacob Misiorowski is standing nearby — performing the pitching equivalent of a dad holding a palmed basketball over his head to keep it away from a toddler — with only nine wins. But Ashby is getting big outs. Murphy uses him relentlessly in close games, in the middle innings. As Baseball-Reference’s handy appearance matrix shows, 24 of his 40 appearances have begun with the game within one run.

via Baseball-Reference

Still, we’re long past the days of relievers being credited with the full effect of circumstance for each W, and that makes Ashby’s conspicuous place atop the leaderboard the rare exception to the rule that might threaten a rule.

“I can almost guarantee there will be a rules change if I come out of this thing with the Major League lead in wins,” Ashby told reporters. “That would be the best way to fast track this thing.”

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

Friends in low places

Dansby Swanson has eight home runs and 26 RBI in the Cubs’ last 10 games. He has been the No. 9 hitter in all but one of those games (and in that one, he was the No. 8 hitter).

You see, in the 73 games prior to that, Swanson was batting .183/.292/.325, with eight home runs and 31 RBI. He was playing his usual excellent defense at shortstop, and remains the Cubs’ second-most highly paid player, so manager Craig Counsell was penciling him into the lineup every day. Just at the bottom of the order.

What started as a blistering series against the Mets — including a doubleheader in which he tallied nine hits, 11 RBI and raised his average from .194 to .202 — gave way to a completely hitless series against the Brewers. Counsell, ever the rational guide, hadn’t reacted to Swanson’s outburst and looked justified in keeping Swanson in the nine hole.

Then the party started again against the Padres. Across a three-game set at a microwave-hot Wrigley Field this week, Swanson launched five homers and drove in 11.

The type of guy who bats ninth is almost indistinguishable from the type of guy who doesn’t bat at all. The bottom third of any major-league lineup is in flux by design. It’s platoon guys who shouldn’t face all types of pitchers. It’s bench guys giving a regular a day off. It’s defensive specialists who get the hook when real at-bats are needed. It’s veterans on their way down the hierarchy toward the bench, or young guys who get soft launched into the majors and quickly climb the ladder at the first sign of productivity. There are 69 batters who have taken at least 200 plate appearances this year in the top third of the order, and only 16 who have taken 200 plate appearances in the bottom third.

Swanson has strolled to the plate from the bottom third of the order more than anyone, 274 times. By the RBI count, he just had the most productive 10-game stretch of any No. 9 hitter since integration in 1947, and that elides the production in his one-off No. 8 game.

Maybe it’s because of Counsell’s steady hand, but here’s the list of the most productive RBI months in the 2020s by bottom-third hitters:

1. Swanson, June 2026: 22
2. Pete Crow-Armstrong, April 2025: 21
3. Swanson, August 2024: 20 (in a tie with 2021 Bobby Dalbec and 2025 Wilmer Flores)

“We never have baseball figured out. And I think this tells you that,” Counsell said about Swanson’s scorching hot turnaround. “The guy's probably gone through the roughest patch of his career, and on the other side of it is the best stretch of his career.”

We’ll see if Counsell sees fit to elevate Swanson’s bat in the order on Friday.

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

We gotta X-ray the baseballs again

In a development that seems, uh, inextricable from Swanson’s turnaround: The composition of the baseballs might be creating a surge of home runs.

Over the past month, drag levels on the baseballs have frequently dropped to 2021 levels and occasionally into 2019 levels, creating extremely favorable conditions for home runs. Effectively Wild’s Ben Lindbergh and The Athletic’s Eno Sarris asked MLB for an explanation this week and got this statement (of which I've excerpted the main part):

In early February, Rawlings notified MLB of an aesthetic issue with the baseballs that shipped for 2026 Spring Training and the Regular Season. In approximately 50% of the baseballs, some excess oil from the yarn inside the baseball filtered through the leather cover of the ball, creating some yellow discoloration. Both Rawlings and MLB's independent laboratory at UMass-Lowell completed testing on these baseballs, and the baseballs were within specifications and performed consistent with prior years. We notified the Clubs and the MLBPA of the issue in February, and consistent with baseball chain of custody procedures, MLB's gameday compliance monitors remove any baseballs that show cosmetic imperfections after the pregame mudding process. Rawlings has resolved the issue with the yarn supplier, but due to the necessary lead times associated with baseball production, the balls without the staining will not be shipped to Clubs until late in the 2026 season or early 2027.

It’s true that we can track drag because MLB makes that information available to us, but it seems the league still hasn’t cracked the PR playbook as it relates to helping fans feel confident in the integrity of the on-field equipment.

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

Propaganda

Maaaaaybe because they are spending more time worrying about the PR playbook to convince fans that a salary cap is necessary. (It’s not, IMO.)

In recent weeks, MLB has taken steps to use its media arms — MLB.com and the league social media accounts — to nakedly promote team owners’ interests in labor negotiations. Now, I worked at MLB Advanced Media from 2015 to 2018, and I can tell you the vast majority of people there don’t have crazy owner-centric marching orders, and don’t stand to materially gain from an owner triumph (the suits in charge aren’t doling out more money to league employees than they have to, either).

But these tactics, particularly a run of stories by Travis Sawchik that present owner talking points under the guise of doom-y analysis, are dismaying for their open weaponization of the outlet that makes up an increasingly substantial slice of the baseball media coverage.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, friend of the newsletter Craig Goldstein broke down the latest disingenuous Sawchick analysis point by infuriating point.

The number of rhetorical devices used, the amount of context conveniently ignored or omitted, and the incredible brazenness of it all was legitimately overwhelming—and to be frank, unbelievably disrespectful of its audience.

I’d highly recommend you read it if you find yourself at all unclear on the propaganda game afoot.

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

Go fish

The Miami Marlins would be a top-four team in the American League by pretty much any broad metric you want to use. Alas, that makes them a borderline postseason contender in the National League.

It’s still worth taking note of what they’re doing. Shortstop Otto Lopez, a 27-year-old they snagged off waivers in April 2024, is batting .332 with seven homers. He’s one of the 10 most valuable players in baseball so far. He has taken a foundation of premium defense and bat-to-ball skills and gradually added bat speed and consistency.

You could write almost the same progressive story about second baseman Xavier Edwards (he of “slapdick prospect”fame) and catcher Liam Hicks. Miami is improving their players, and should be in position to make moves that at least nominally point toward winning at the deadline.

The Fish don’t stink, as Defector wrote this week. They might even be a fun team to bandwagon.

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

Mortality

Paul Skenes’ is up to a positively pedestrian 3.62. The Pirates great hope has allowed four or more runs in five starts this season, with his latest outing an eight-run disappointment against the Phillies.

It’s not a five-alarm fire or anything. He’s still striking out 30.1% of batters and walking only 5.6%. His WHIP is barely over 1.00. The longstanding peripheral measures of a pitcher that tend to forecast future results say he remains a top-shelf pitcher. The thing hurting him is the homers. Skenes’ total of 11 long balls allowed this year in 97 innings already matches the 11 he gave up in 187 2/3 innings last season.

And we can’t just blame the ball.

Statcast’s new bat tracking metrics show that Skenes’ stuff has become a little watered down this year. Where hitters swung over the top of his sinker on 27% of hacks in 2025, they’re only swinging over it 9% of the time in 2026. The sweeper that glided to the impotent end of the bat last year has been centered on 65% of swings this year, up from 49% last year.

To oversimplify it: The movement of Skenes’ arsenal might be a little muddled right now.

Skenes' pitches vs. the average pitch of that type. via Baseball Savant

His most-used pitches have floated closer to the MLB norms for those pitches. He is special, but the pitches that make him so special haven’t been quite as sharp. Not quite as Skenes-y.

He’s human. He’ll have to work through either fixing what ails him or trudging through a bout of bad results and sticking to his strengths. That decision, the meaning or meaninglessness of each day and all that comes after it, that’s the mess of a baseball season.

⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾⚾

This Independence Day, I’ve been thinking about how proud I am to be operating this independent baseball newsletter — about covering this corner of the world for this group of readers. I’m grateful to have so many fans like you. I want to take a moment to humbly say that more support is needed keep the newsletter going strong.

If you’re able, please consider pledging a contribution to power The Bandwagon. I’ve knocked annual Fan status down to just $36.

You can also make a one-time contribution in an amount of your choosing.

I don’t want this to be a one-way relationship either. Now halfway through Year 2 of the newsletter, I’d love to know what you think — what you like, what you don’t and what you might like to see more of. You can take The Bandwagon Fan Survey and provide feedback here.

Have a great July 4th weekend.