The Family-Separation Files

Published

3 years ago

January 10, 2023

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The Atlantic is publishing a collection of key internal government documents related to the Trump administrations family-separation policy, known as Zero Tolerance. The records informed the reporting of my cover story on how it came to be and who was responsible. Our hope is to introduce greater transparency around a policy that gravely harmed thousands of families and whose development and intent were concealed from the public for years. During the Trump administration, more than 5,000 migrant children were taken from their parents as part of a dubious and ineffectual strategy to deter migration across the southern border. Hundreds remain separated today.

From the September 2022 issue: We need to take away children

These records showcase, among other things, government officials attempts to mislead the public; inconsistent and sometimes nonexistent record keeping, which to this day means that a full accounting of separations does not exist; efforts to extend the length of time that children and parents were kept apart; and early and repeated internal warnings about the policys worst outcomes, which were ignored.

As you will see, some of the records are marked pre-decisional, deliberative, or attorney-client privileged in an attempt to exempt them from federal disclosure requirements and ensure they would never become public. The Atlantic obtained them only through extensive litigation.

The Atlantics records, combined with others secured by the House Judiciary Committee, the progressive nonprofit group American Oversight, and separated families themselves, have been organized and tagged for future use. The collection is far from complete, and many of the documents still contain redactions. However, we hope that this database will prove a useful tool for those engaged in research and documentation of family separations, and that the body of publicly available information will continue to grow.

Jump to Initial separations, Deliberations leading up to the implementation of Zero Tolerance, Zero Tolerance Policy, Misleading the public, Investigations by the Department of Homeland Securitys Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Problems with family reunification and attempts to thwart it, Known instances of separation, Collections, Further readingInitial Separations (Pilot Programs)

In the spring of 2017, Jeff Self, the Border Patrol chief in the El Paso Sector, which includes New Mexico and parts of Texas, quietly launched a regional program to start referring migrant parents traveling with children for prosecution, which would require those families to be separated. This strained resources throughout the immigration system, including at the Department of Health and Human Services, which took custody of the children. Federal officials would later call the program a pilot and use it as a model for expanding the practice nationwide. Some early separations also occurred in Yuma, Arizona, under a separate initiative.

Family Separation Directive for Texas Border Patrol stations in the El Paso Sector*

Family Separation Directive for New Mexico Border Patrol stations in the El Paso Sector*

Department of Health and Human Services official: They are discovering more separations that were not reported.

HHS officials contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeking help locating the parents of detained separated children.

HHS official reports that the Department of Homeland Security is working on a family separation policy again.

El Paso Sector After Action Report summarizing the results of separations that occurred there in 2017

Jonathan White, head of the HHS program housing children, reports, We had a shortage last night of beds for babies.

HHS officials report, We suspect that there are other [unaccompanied children] being separated from parents.

Border Patrol official Gloria Chavez tells the acting agency chief Carla Provost that the El Paso Sector has been separating families for more than four months. Provost calls for separations to stop.

Provost: This has been ongoing since July without our knowledge It has not blown up in the media as of yet but of course has the potential to.

Border Patrol official Scott Luck asks colleagues Chavez and Hull, Why are we just hearing about it?

A DHS official requests a Border Patrol report on initial separations in El Paso to present to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

The acting deputy chief of the Border Patrols El Paso Sector tells Chavez, inaccurately, that family separations there lasted only two to seven days, and suggests, despite evidence to the contrary, that many people presenting themselves as families at the border were in fact unrelated. Deliberations Leading Up to the Implementation of Zero Tolerance

At a February 14, 2017, interagency meeting, immigration-enforcement officials presented a nationwide plan to separate families as an immigration deterrent. Afterward, officials at the Department of Health and Human Servicesthe agency that would be charged with caring for separated childrenpushed back against the plan while scrambling to prepare. The plan was also leaked to the media, after which Homeland Security officials began to assert publicly that the idea had been abandoned. In reality, during and after regional separation programs were implemented in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, the nationwide plan was still being pushed aggressively by leaders of the immigrant-enforcement agencies, as well as by Stephen Miller, President Donald Trumps chief immigration adviser, and Gene Hamilton, a confidant of Millers who worked at DHS and the Department of Justice.

Invitation to the February 14, 2017, meeting

HHS official Jonathan Whites internal summary of proposals discussed at the February meeting

HHS official: DHS stressed in a meeting that the overall intent of the actions is to serve as a deterrent.

White asks enforcement officials for more information about plans to separate families.

List of attempts by White to inquire and raise red flags about plans to separate families

HHS March 2017 report: Children who would be separated tend to skew heavily toward tender aged; separations could be considered a human rights abuse, cause a myriad of international legal issues, and increase the risk of human trafficking.

HHS official: DHS is looking to expand family separations despite a complaint filed with the inspector general. (Original complaint here.)

In an internal memo, federal officials describe family separation as a short term solution to be implemented in the next 30 days.**

December 2017 correspondence between DHS officials: Announce that DHS will begin separating family units.

December 2017 DHS policy proposal: Parental Choice of Detention or Separation

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan plans to formally recommend family separation: I do believe that this approach would have the greatest impact. Zero Tolerance Policy

Zero Tolerance memo signed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsens follow-up Zero Tolerance memo with additional instructions

El Paso Sector initial implementation guidance

El Centro Sector implementation guidance

Del Rio Sector implementation guidance

Scott Lloyd of Health and Human Services asks McAleenan and Acting ICE Director Tom Homan for a meeting to discuss the implications of Zero Tolerance.

Border Patrol officials warn of repercussions for prosecutors who declined to participate in separations.

The Justice Departments Gene Hamilton touts a dramatic increase in prosecutions under Zero Tolerance.

A lot of parent separation cases are missing information, an HHS official reports.

HHS officials note inconsistent documentation and tracking issues.

An HHS official reports, There are a bunch of tender age girls stuck in Border Patrol stations; this is caused by the policy decision to separate kids from their families as a deterrent.

A magistrate judge in Tucson, Arizona, inquires about separation and reunification processes.

After a Bownsville, Texas, magistrate demands a list of separated families and their locations, a Border Patrol agent jokes, I might be spending some time in the slammer.

Yuma Border Patrol Sector reports: Resources are strained by meal preparation, and feeding detained families.

Amended Big Bend Sector guidance

Orders to halt separations following President Trumps executive order reversing course on Zero Tolerance in response to public outcry

A Customs and Border Protection official notes failures to properly document separations of 0-to-4-year-old children. Zero Tolerance Charts

Though a full accounting of the family separations that took place during the Trump administration does not exist, these internal government charts offer some insight into the nature of those that were recorded. For example, Homeland Security officials have often suggested that some of the individuals separated under Zero Tolerance were actually false families, or that separated parents were guilty of more serious crimes beyond the misdemeanor of illegally crossing the border, to justify taking their children away. But the first chart in this list makes clear that 2,146 of 2,256 separated parents who were referred for prosecution between May 5 and June 20, 2018, were charged only with the misdemeanor. During the same period, 137 parents were charged with the felony of having crossed the border illegally more than once, while only two were presented with other charges. The second chart notes that over those weeks, at least 251 children younger than 6 were separated from their parents, along with 1,370 children ages 6 to 12, and 1,272 ages 13 to 17.

Zero Tolerance Separation datasets May 5-June 20, 2018

Internal Border Patrol Prosecution Initiative Update charts from July 1 to July 7, 2018

Undated list of reasons for some separations Misleading the Public

Below is a small sampling of instances when government officials, members of congress, reporters and community groups sought information about a noticeable rise in family separations. Despite these inquiries, for more than a year, Department of Homeland Security officials denied that the agencys treatment of families had changed, suggesting that business was proceeding as usual and that families were not being separated any more than in the past.

The El Paso Federal Defenders Office has registered an increase in the separation of children and parents, an immigrant advocacy group wrote to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ahead of an August 2017 meeting. What is the current policy on family separation?

Border Patrol officials scramble to respond after a meeting with Representative Beto ORourkes office, in which family separations were inadvertently disclosed.

Months into the El Paso Sector separation initiative, Border Patrol official Aaron Hull tells the ICE official Phil Miller, We dont like to separate families.

Houston Chronicle reporter Lomi Kriel asking whether the Border Patrols policy on family separations had changed, and receiving unclear answers in response. (Kriels article here)

Jonathan White of the Department of Health and Human Services asks Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan and Acting ICE Director Tom Homan why his agency is receiving larger numbers of separated children than in the past. Homan does not respond. McAleenan does not disclose that separations have been underway to White.

A communications official at DHS seeks guidance on how to respond to inquiries from the media and immigrant advocacy groups.

DHS official to reporters: We ask that members of the public and media view advocacy group claims that we are separating women and children for reasons other than to protect the child with the level of skepticism they deserve.

In response to another inquiry, HHS officials decline to respond, and then confirm that more than 700 children have in fact been separated.

In internal emails, DHS officials push back against the story about 700 separated children, claiming inaccurately that the actual number is much lower. Investigations by Homeland Securitys Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL)

Quarterly meeting agenda: There are reports of family separation cases at the border.

A report on an investigation into complaints of family separations cites inconsistency, inadequate protocols, and lack of collaboration. It recommends the creation of an interagency working group, a Family-Member Locator System, and other tools to prevent prolonged separations and to ensure that families are eventually reunified.

A summary of an investigation into 950 complaints about family separations anticipates permanent family separation and new populations of US orphans.

CRCL staff seeks information about the enormous volume of matters alleging inappropriate family separations.

Cameron Quinn, the head of CRCL, emails Customs and Border Protection Commissioner McAleenan to raise concerns about reports of family separations.

Quinn tells McAleenan that CRCL has received over 100 recent allegations of separations.

CRCL staff notes the Border Patrols failure to document some separations.

Quinn forwards allegations of coercion and abuse of separated parents to McAleenan and Acting ICE Director Ron Vitiello. (Original complaint found here) Problems With Family Reunification and Attempts to Thwart It

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official named Matt Albence insists that the expectation is that we are NOT to reunite the families and proposes ways to avoid such reunifications, such as moving children away from the border faster.

We cant have this, Albence writes about reunifications.

Albence and other ICE and Border Patrol officials lament that some families have been reunified, calling it a fiasco and not the consequence we had in mind, which obviously undermines the entire effort.

Reunifications, Albence insists, are not going to happen unless we are directed by the Dept to do so.

Reports that reunification forms were given to parents in languages they did not understand

Correspondence on harried reunification efforts

An employee at a company contracted to care for separated children tells colleagues, ICE will be stopping all reunifications due to limited bed space. Known Instances of Separation

In the federal lawsuit Ms. L. v. ICE, lawyers representing the federal government turned over the most complete list of family separations that exists. The ACLU shared that database with The Atlantic after redacting details such as names and dates of birth, which could be used to identify individual parents or children who were affected by the separation policy. Collections

Here, documents are organized into collections based on key criteria, such as year, location, federal agency, and the key players involved.

Full collection

2017, the first year in which separations took place

2018, the second year in which separations took place

Department of Justice, which prosecuted some separated parents

Department of Health and Human Services, which took custody of most separated children

Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the immigration-enforcement agencies Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, whose officers separated some families at ports of entry

Border Patrol, whose agents separated most of the families affected by the Trump administrations family-separation policy

ICE, whose leadership advocated for separating families and sought to prolong separations

The White House, where a group of hawks, led by Stephen Miller, Donald Trumps senior immigration adviser, pushed for aggressive enforcement tactics, including separating families

Matt Albence, Head of enforcement and removal operations, the division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that carries out deportations

Gloria Chavez, a long-serving Border Patrol official who had early knowledge of separations that occurred in the El Paso Sector

Gene Hamilton, Served as senio counsel at DHS under President Donald Trump. When Nielsen took over as DHS secretary, Hamilton left to work on immigration enforcement with his former boss Jeff Sessions, who was then Trumps attorney general.

Jonathan Hoffman, A close adviser and assistant secretary for public affairs to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

Tom Homan, The intellectual father of the idea to separate migrant families as a deterrent, who went on to serve as acting ICE director through the end of Zero Tolerance

Bob Kadlec, HHS assistant secretary of preparedness and response, who led the agencys family-reunification task force

John Kelly, Considered but ultimately rejected the idea to separate migrant families as a deterrent while serving as Trumps first DHS secretary. Kelly went on to serve as Trumps chief of staff during Zero Tolerance.

Scott Lloyd, Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the HHS division that houses detained unaccompanied children. For months, Lloyd declined to look into reports of family separations, even when presented with overwhelming evidence that they were occurring.

Kevin McAleenan, Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol. In May 2018, McAleenan recommended that the Border Patrol start referring migrant parents for prosecution and separating them from their children.

Kirstjen Nielsen, After serving as chief of staff to John Kelly at DHS, Nielsen became DHS secretary and the face of family separations

Carla Provost, Acting Border Patrol chief during Zero Tolerance

Ron Vitiello, Acting Director Customs and Border Protection, who was second in command to Kevin McAleenan during Zero Tolerance and the preceding pilots

Katie Waldman, DHS deputy press secretary, who went on to marry Stephen Miller

Jonathan White, Served as head of the HHS program that houses detained migrant children. White opposed and tried to prevent family separations, and later helped lead HHS efforts to reunify families.

Chad Wolf, Chief of staff to Acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke and Secretary Nielsen. Under Duke, Wolf pressed the DHS policy office to support proposals to separate families. Locations: Big Bend, Brownsville, Calexico, California, Canutillo, Del Rio, El Centro, El Paso, Harlingen, Hidalgo, Houston, Laredo, New Mexico, New York, Nogales, Phoenix, Port Isabel, Rio Grande Valley, San Diego, San Luis, San Ysidro, Texas, Tucson, Yuma Further Reading Congressional Reports

House Oversight Committee: Child Separations by the Trump Administration

House Judiciary Committee: The Trump Administrations Family Separation Policy: Trauma, Destruction, and Chaos Inspector General Reports Department of Justice

Review of the Department of Justices Planning and Implementation of Its Zero Tolerance Policy and Its Coordination With the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services Department of Health and Human Services

Separated Children Placed in Office of Refugee Resettlement Care

Communication and Management Challenges Impeded HHSs Response to the Zero-Tolerance Policy

Characteristics of Separated Children in ORRs Care: June 27, 2018November 15, 2020 Department of Homeland Security and Components

DHS Lacked Technology Needed to Successfully Account for Separated Migrant Families

CBP Separated More Asylum-Seeking Families at Ports of Entry Than Reported and for Reasons Other Than Those Outlined in Public Statements

Children Waited for Extended Periods in Vehicles to Be Reunified With Their Parents at ICEs Port Isabel Detention Center in July 2018

ICE Did Not Consistently Provide Separated Migrant Parents the Opportunity to Bring Their Children Upon Removal *The government supplied numerous copies of this directive with various portions redacted. The least redacted version has been excerpted here from the Border Patrols After Action Report, which summarized the results of the separations that occurred in the El Paso Sector in 2017.

**This memo was originally obtained by the office of Senator Jeff Merkley.

Note: The government occasionally supplied The Atlantic with multiple versions of the same email chain or report, and redacted different portions of each. Such documents have been combined in order to show all unredacted material.

Sports

What defines an ace in 2025? Breaking down what success looks like for today’s star pitchers

Published

1 hour ago

September 17, 2025

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What defines an ace in 2025? Breaking down what success looks like for today's star pitchers

David SchoenfieldSep 17, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
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- Covers MLB for ESPN.com
- Former deputy editor of Page 2
- Been with ESPN.com since 1995

Baseball fans who grew up on 20-game winners understand — sometimes with much chagrin, sometimes with more emphatic degrees of horror — that the expectations for a starting pitcher are much different in 2025 than 10 years ago, let alone 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

The complete game is all but dead — no pitcher has more than one nine-inning complete game this season. One hundred pitches is now viewed as the top limit for a pitch count, with pitchers rarely exceeding 110 — Randy Johnson had more 110-pitch outings just in 1993 than every starter combined in 2025. Pitchers get more days off between starts. And the list goes on.

Forty years ago in 1985, 20-year-old right-hander Dwight Gooden went 24-4 with a 1.53 ERA while leading the National League with 16 complete games and 268 strikeouts; left-hander John Tudor went 21-8 with a 1.93 ERA, 14 complete games and 10 shutouts.

Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal are this season’s equivalents to Gooden and Tudor, the top starting pitchers in the majors, but when you dig into their numbers compared to their 1985 counterparts, the change in the modern game for pitchers is obviously apparent and raises the question: What does an ace look like in 2025?

Skenes, who’s the heavy favorite to win the NL Cy Young Award and should finish with the highest WAR for a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher since the lively ball era began in 1920, has an MLB-best 2.03 ERA while leading the NL in strikeouts and WAR. He has had 11 scoreless outings this season — but his win-loss record is just 10-10. Skubal is the favorite to win the AL Cy Young Award for the second straight season with just 13 wins and may not reach 200 innings, just as he didn’t this past season.

While Tudor had 10 shutouts in one season, there have been just 12 complete game shutouts across the entire major leagues in 2025, nobody with more than one. The only pitcher with a shot to win 20 games, which was once the longstanding prerequisite to win a Cy Young Award, is Max Fried, who has 17 but might make just two more starts. And Skubal’s and Skenes’ numbers aren’t even unique from recent Cy Young winners: We’ve seen starters secure the honor with 13 wins (Robbie Ray in 2021 and Felix Hernandez in 2010), 11 (Corbin Burnes in 2021 and Jacob deGrom in 2019) and even a mere 10 (deGrom in 2018).

But even if their stat lines differ from past top hurlers, Skenes and Skubal are having great seasons within the context of how the game is played in 2025 and how pitchers are now managed. We’re not going back anytime soon to 1969, when 15 pitchers won 20 games, or 1974, when 34 pitchers threw at least 250 innings (we’ll be lucky to get two or three pitchers to reach 200 innings in 2025).

So, as the regular season winds down, we set out to find what defines a great season for an ace in 2025. How should we compare the aces of the past to those of today? And what is the measure of success for an ace in 2025 compared to years prior?

To answer these questions, we went back 50 years to compare 2025 to 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015. My colleague Kiley McDaniel suggests that there are generally about 12 aces in any given season, so we’ll use that: the 12 aces from each of those seasons. Let’s get into it.

Note: The 12 aces for each season were selected using Baseball-Reference WAR, innings pitched, ERA and ERA+ (which adjusts for each pitcher’s league and home park run-scoring context) as the primary guidelines.

1975

Aces: Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Tom Seaver, Jim Kaat, Randy Jones, Frank Tanana, Andy Messersmith, Bert Blyleven, Steve Busby, Gaylord Perry, Jerry Reuss, Vida Blue

Average ace line: 20-12, 2.69 ERA, 288 IP, 244 H, 191 SO, 80 BB, 37 GS, 19 CG, 5 SHO, 138 ERA+, 6.8 WAR

Average MLB starter: 3.80 ERA, 4.9 SO/9, 1.49 SO/BB ratio

What defined an ace in 1975: Durability … and wins.

Defining stat: Our aces completed 226 of their 439 starts (51%) and averaged 7.8 innings per start.

The 1970s were a pitching-rich decade — there were 96 20-win seasons in the decade — with starters carrying big workloads, especially early in the decade when 40-start seasons and 300 innings were routine. If you were an ace, the expectation was that you would finish the game. No pitcher exemplified this quite like Gaylord Perry: From 1970 to 1975, he averaged 321 innings per season and completed 64% of his starts.

The Cy Young winners in 1975 were Palmer (23-11, 2.09 ERA, 8.4 WAR, 323 IP) and Seaver (22-9, 2.38 ERA, 7.8 WAR, 280 IP), and like all the Cy Young winners in the 1970s — except Seaver in 1973 (when he won 19 games) and three relievers who won — they won 20 games. The Cy Young-winning starters in this decade averaged 23 wins — and often, wins were the deciding factor in the vote.

There was no shortage of aces to choose from in 1975 — among those who failed to make the cut were Nolan Ryan (missed time with an injury and had just 2.6 WAR), Steve Carlton (3.56 ERA, 2.2 WAR), Fergie Jenkins (25 wins in 1974, but a 3.93 ERA in ’75), Don Sutton (16 wins, 3.5 WAR) and Phil Niekro (15 wins, 3.20 ERA). In other words: five future Hall of Famers in their primes.

1985

Aces: Dwight Gooden, John Tudor, Bret Saberhagen, Dave Stieb, Charlie Leibrandt, Bert Blyleven, Rick Reuschel, Orel Hershiser, Fernando Valenzuela, Jack Morris, Ron Guidry, Bob Welch

Average ace line: 18-8, 2.54 ERA, 248 IP, 204 H, 67 BB, 167 SO, 33 GS, 12 CG, 4 SHO, 157 ERA+, 6.6 WAR

Average MLB starter: 3.96 ERA, 5.2 SO/9, 1.65 SO/BB ratio

What defined an ace in 1985: A great secondary pitch.

Defining stat: The 157 ERA+ was a big increase from 1975.

It’s probably not fair to compare Skenes to Gooden, since Gooden’s 1985 season ranks as one of the best pitching seasons of all time. In a normal season, Tudor would have cruised to a Cy Young Award, but he finished second to Gooden in ’85 while Saberhagen — another right-hander who was just 21 years old — won AL honors after going 20-6 with a 2.87 ERA. Thanks to Gooden and Tudor, the average ERA+ of the 1985 aces soared much higher than in 1975, but because they were pitching fewer innings, their overall value remained almost identical.

Gooden and Saberhagen had blistering fastballs, and just them and Welch probably fit the description of “fastball pitcher” — unlike many of the 1970s aces who did rely heavily on a fastball. For the most part, however, this group stands out for a notable secondary pitch as the best weapon — and even Gooden had that monster 12-to-6 curveball. Tudor and Leibrandt were lefties with great changeups. Stieb had one of the best sliders of all time and Blyleven one of the best curveballs. The young Hershiser certainly had above-average fastball velocity, but changed speeds with his sinker, cutter, curveball and changeup. Fernando had the famous screwball, Morris a forkball and Guidry a slider.

By 1985, we had started to see an increase in the power game — home runs had increased from 0.70 per game in 1975 to 0.86 in 1985. It wasn’t quite so easy to rely primarily on a great fastball with more power up and down the lineup. Case in point: The 1975 Reds, with one of the best lineups of all time, hit just 124 home runs, which would be below average by 1985 and would outrank only the Pirates in 2025. We also see the transformation from four-man to five-man rotations and the advent of the modern closer, which led to fewer innings and fewer complete games — although our aces still averaged nearly 250 innings.

The 1980s was the worst decade for Cy Young selections. Four relievers won, but even worse were the selections of Pete Vuckovich in 1982 (3.34 ERA, 2.8 WAR) and LaMarr Hoyt in 1983 (3.66 ERA, 3.7 WAR), who won only because they led their respective leagues in wins. Leaving out the relievers and the 1981 strike season, the average Cy Young winner in the 1980s won 22 games.

1995

Aces: Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, David Cone, Mike Mussina, Kenny Rogers, Dennis Martinez, David Wells, Tim Wakefield, Tom Glavine, Hideo Nomo, Kevin Brown, John Smoltz

Average ace line: 16-7, 2.99 ERA, 202 IP, 170 H, 61 BB, 166 SO, 29 GS, 5 CG, 2 SHO, 157 ERA+, 5.9 WAR

Average MLB starter: 4.53 ERA, 6.0 SO/9, 1.82 SO/BB ratio

What defined an ace in 1995: Figuring out how to survive the PED era of increased offense.

Defining stat: We start to see an increase in K’s per nine from our aces. In 1975, it was 6.0; in 1985, 6.1; in 1995, it increased to 7.4.

This was the strike-shortened 144-game season, so the aces are missing about three or four starts from a full 162-game season, which would have given us at least a couple 20-game winners (Maddux and Mussina each won 19) and a bunch more pitchers with 200 innings.

Around this time, the game’s top-level pitchers became even more dominant in comparison to the league average starter as an offensive boom arrived due to PED usage and a livelier baseball. Our group of aces in 1995 — which didn’t include Roger Clemens or a young Pedro Martinez — had an ERA 52 percentage points better than the average starter and a strikeout rate per nine that was 23 percentage points higher. Despite the high-run environment, Maddux went 19-2 with a 1.63 ERA while Johnson went 18-2 with a 2.48 ERA and 294 strikeouts in just 30 starts to win Cy Young honors.

In one sense, we were entering the era of the super pitcher: Maddux, Johnson, Clemens and Pedro all arguably rank among the 10 greatest starting pitchers of all time, dominating in a high-offense era, while Mussina, Glavine and Smoltz are Hall of Famers. In 1995, the MLB average was 4.85 runs per game — compared to 4.21 in 1975 and 4.33 in 1985 — and would climb above five runs per game in 1996, 1999 and 2000. The increased offense across the sport contributed to the decline in innings pitched, along with the continued evolution of the modern bullpen.

The average nonreliever Cy Young winner in the 1990s (skipping the shortened 1994 season) won 20 games per season, with a few still securing the honor mainly because of their win total (most famously, 27-game winner Welch in 1990 over 21-game winner Clemens, despite Clemens posting an ERA more than a run lower, 1.93 to 2.95).

2005

Aces: Roger Clemens, Dontrelle Willis, Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, Randy Johnson, Chris Carpenter, Roy Halladay, John Smoltz, Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavy

Average ace line: 16-8, 2.82 ERA, 220 IP, 190 H, 46 BB, 185 SO, 32 GS, 4 CG, 2 SHO, 155 ERA+, 6.1 WAR

Average MLB starter: 4.36 ERA, 6.0 SO/9, 2.08 SO/BB ratio

What defined an ace in 2005: Striking out a lot more batters than they walked.

Defining stat: Strikeout-to-walk ratio. In 1975, our aces had a SO/BB ratio of 2.4; in 1985, 2.5; in 1995, 2.7; but in 2005, it was all the way up to 4.0.

For whatever reason, 2005 saw a minor dip in offense from surrounding seasons (the MLB average was 4.81 runs per game in 2004 and 4.86 in 2006 but 4.59 this season). Clemens had his last great season, leading the NL with a 1.87 ERA and 7.8 WAR, although with 13 wins, he finished third in the Cy Young voting behind Carpenter (21-5, 2.83 ERA, 5.8 WAR) and Willis (22-10, 2.63 ERA, 7.3 WAR). The AL Cy Young voting similarly registered wins as the priority: Santana was 16-7 with a 2.87 ERA and 7.2 WAR and should have won, but 21-game winner Bartolo Colon with a 3.48 ERA captured the honor.

Overall, our aces carried a similar workload to 1995 and remained as productive, with a high ERA+ while averaging over 6.0 WAR. The biggest difference, of course, was how the aces got there: more strikeouts and fewer walks. Halladay best symbolized this new generation of aces, who combined strikeout stuff with great control. Indeed, he made the list of aces even though he made just 19 starts in 2005 — but he went 12-4 with a 2.41 ERA and 5.5 WAR, good enough to crack the top 12. Call that season a sign of things to come, where you wouldn’t need to pitch 220 innings to be one of the most valuable starters.

The typical Cy Young winner in the 2000s still averaged 19.5 wins, with new “lows” set in 2006 when Brandon Webb won with just 16 wins and then Tim Lincecum in 2009 with 15 wins.

2015

Aces: Zack Greinke, Jake Arrieta, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Dallas Keuchel, David Price, Sonny Gray, Jacob deGrom, Madison Bumgarner, Felix Hernandez, Corey Kluber, Gerrit Cole

Average ace line: 17-8, 2.56 ERA, 218 IP, 172 H, 45 BB, 225 SO, 32 GS, 3 CG, 2 SHO, 156 ERA+, 6.1 WAR

Average MLB starter: 4.10 ERA, 7.4 SO/9, 2.73 SO/BB ratio

What defined an ace in 2015: Strikeouts!

Defining stat: The strikeout rate for our aces climbed to over one per inning at 9.3 K’s per nine.

This season featured one of the best three-way Cy Young races of all time, when Greinke and Arrieta posted ERAs under 2.00 while Kershaw had a 2.13 ERA with 301 strikeouts. Greinke was 19-3 with a 1.66 ERA and 8.9 WAR, but Arrieta won after going 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA and 8.3 WAR.

The increased strikeout rate is a reflection of a couple of things: We were near the beginning of the high-velocity era for pitchers, but what set apart these aces is multiple strikeout pitches to go along with their fastballs. Arrieta featured two fastballs, a slider, curveball and changeup, and Greinke had the same five-pitch repertoire. Kershaw had pinpoint control of his fastball and two unhittable off-speed pitches in his curveball and slider. King Felix had an A+ changeup and a great curveball. Kluber parlayed a cutter/slider/curveball combo into two Cy Youngs. Scherzer and deGrom had everything — overpowering fastballs, control and multiple off-speed weapons. It was a new wave of dominance that we had never seen before.

The typical Cy Young winner in the 2010s still averaged 18.8 wins. It was a very controversial selection when Hernandez won in 2010 despite going just 13-12 for a terrible Mariners team, and wins still generally remained a key factor in Cy Young voting during this decade. As late as 2016, Rick Porcello (22-6, 4.7 WAR) beat out Justin Verlander (16-9, 7.4 WAR) primarily because he won more games (Verlander actually had more first-place votes, 14 to 8). However, the tide had shifted by the time deGrom took home the honor in 2018 and 2019 despite winning just 10 and 11 games, respectively. He was clearly the best pitcher in the NL and received 29 of 30 first-place votes both years.

2025

Aces: Paul Skenes, Cristopher Sanchez, Tarik Skubal, Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Nick Pivetta, Freddy Peralta, Ranger Suarez, Zack Wheeler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Logan Webb, Max Fried

Average ace line: 13-6, 2.65 ERA, 174 IP, 137 H, 44 BB, 195 SO, 16 HR, 29 GS, 1 CG, 0 SHO, 162 ERA+, 5.4 WAR

Average MLB starter: 4.23 ERA, 8.2 SO/9, 2.77 SO/BB ratio

What defines an ace in 2025: Dominance over shorter outings.

Defining stat: Our aces have allowed no runs or one run in 171 out of 346 starts.

Those totals will climb a bit over the final days of the season, but we’re still seeing a 30-to-40-inning drop in workload from a decade prior, and thus a slight drop in overall value despite a high rate of productivity. The trade-off with fewer innings is that these aces are expected to dominate over those shorter outings, which often now last just six or seven innings. Skenes has pitched more than seven innings just three times and Skubal just twice (although, one of those was his first career complete game).

Of course, fewer innings means fewer decisions and thus fewer wins from the elite starters. The eight Cy Young winners from 2021 to 2024 averaged just 15.1 wins per season and the last 20-game Cy Young winner was Verlander in 2019.

Conclusion

The days of multiple 20-game winners vying for Cy Young honors are long gone, but I hope we’ve adjusted our thinking and can still appreciate what Skenes and Skubal — and Sanchez, Crochet, Brown and the other top starters — have accomplished in an era that is much different from 1975 or 1985.

A stat like WAR is a good way to look at this. Skenes has 7.2 WAR — higher than nine of the Cy Young starting pitchers of the 1970s and eight from the 1980s. Skenes is just as valuable in 2025 as many of the top pitchers were 40 and 50 years ago in their era.

Will his 2025 campaign go down as a legendary season like Gooden had in 1985? No, 10-10 is not the same as 24-4, and losing that aspect of baseball history no doubt stirs up much of the consternation about the “decline” of the starting pitcher. But let’s leave it at this: Dwight Gooden was a must-watch star in 1985, just as Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux were in 1995, just as Clayton Kershaw in 2015 and just as Skenes and Skubal are in 2025.

US

What we can learn about Charlie Kirk suspect Tyler Robinson from his charging document

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1 hour ago

September 17, 2025

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What we can learn about Charlie Kirk suspect Tyler Robinson from his charging document

A charging document from prosecutors has revealed new details about Charlie Kirk’s suspected shooter, including incriminating messages he allegedly sent to his roommate.

The details came after Tyler Robinson, 22, appeared in court via video link from prison, having been charged with aggravated murder, weapon, and obstruction of justice offences.

He was arrested following a two-day manhunt after right-wing influencer Kirk, 31, was killed at one of his rallies at Utah Valley University (UVU) last Wednesday.

Here are some of the key details included in Robinson’s charging document:

What was in the texts between Robinson and his roommate?

Investigators and prosecutors, including the Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer James Cox, have said Robinson was in a relationship with his roommate, a biological male in the process of transitioning.

The document reveals some of the exchanges between the pair, which prosecutors say were provided to the police by the roommate, despite Robinson allegedly demanding that they deleted them.

On the day of the shooting, Robinson allegedly sent the roommate a text which read: “Drop what you are doing, look under my keyboard.”

Prosecutors say the roommate looked under his keyboard and found a note that stated: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”

Robinson added he was hoping to be home soon and apologised for “involving” the roommate, adding he had “hoped to keep this secret till [sic] I died of old age”.

When his roommate asked if he was the “one who did it”, Robinson allegedly replied: “I am, I’m sorry.”

Robinson is said to have written in another text: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

He supposedly wrote that he had planned the shooting for “a bit over a week” and later instructed the roommate to “delete this exchange”.

Children present while bullet ‘passed closely’ by questioner

The shooting happened during Kirk’s “prove me wrong” series, which saw the father of two visit campuses and debate contentious subjects; in this case, he was discussing mass shootings.

The prosecutors say the bullet which struck Kirk’s neck “passed closely to several other individuals”, including the person questioning him as part of the event.

One of the seven counts against Robinson is for “violent offence committed in the presence of a child”, as prosecutors say there were children near the stage when Kirk was shot. The charge states that there was a child younger than 14 years old present.

Campus police officer started investigating immediately after shooting

The document details how one UVU police officer quickly uncovered the position where Kirk is believed to have taken the shot from.

It says the officer was watching the crowd from an elevated vantage point when the shot was fired, and that he began to scan the area for threats as soon as he heard it go off.

The officer assumed the shot came from a rifle based on its sound, and started looking for sniper positions.

He noted the roof area where the shot could have been taken from. He rushed there and confirmed a clear shooting corridor between the position and Kirk’s seat.

“He also noticed markings in the gravel rooftop consistent with a sniper having lain on the roof – impressions in the gravel potentially left by the elbows, knees, and feet of a person in a prone shooting position,” the document states.

Prosecutors say the discovery led the authorities to review footage covering the roof, which later helped them identify the suspect.

Targets with bullet holes found at suspect’s home

Police said they found several targets with bullet holes when they searched Robinson’s home, along with a shell casing with etchings in it.

The etchings, prosecutors said, were like the ones found on the shells in the rifle near UVU.

The words and symbols on those shells featured references to fascism, video games and internet memes.

UK

In pictures: Donald Trump given royal welcome as UK state visit begins

Published

1 hour ago

September 17, 2025

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In pictures: Donald Trump given royal welcome as UK state visit begins

Donald Trump has kicked off his second state visit to the UK with a royal greeting, carriage procession and gun salute.

As the US president and the First Lady Melania Trump touched down in a rainy Windsor, they were greeted by Prince William and Kate, before meeting King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Follow Trump state visit live

The national anthems of the UK and US were then played as a carriage procession carried the Trumps and the King and Queen towards Windsor Castle.

Here, Mr Trump inspected the Guard of Honour before heading inside the castle. Tonight, a grand state banquet will be held in honour of the US president, where both the King and Mr Trump are expected to give speeches.