2013
49 posts
2014 Hall of Fame "Ballot"
We began this post a couple of months ago. We've written thousands of words about whom we would, and would not, vote for if we had a Hall of Fame ballot. For the sake of our readership, we've decided to strip this down…
2013 Holiday Season "Now Playing" (ranked)
It's been a long time since we've had a not-baseball post. With the best time of the year to go to the movies upon us, below is a humbly ranked list of cinema options this holiday season: American Hustle Inside Llewyn…
Hall of Fame's Best Outsiders
Earlier this week, I emailed Graham Womack my submission for Baseball: Past and Present 's fourth annual " 50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame " project. Back in the Summer of 2010, we assembled our first occasional…
Fangraphs Spray Charts Are Here!
Baseball fans were given a late Hanukkah / early Christmas present today, when David Appelman announced that Fangraphs now has batted ball and fielded ball spray charts for the 2012 and 2013 seasons, courtesy of Inside…
Reasons MLB Run Scoring is So Low
AL and NL runs scored/game were both at their lowest level since 1992. — P (@Toirtap) November 19, 2013 People have differing reactions to the statement above. First, some context... Average Runs Scored per Game 1919:…
3-Year Batting, Pitching and Fielding Stats
Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on winning their third World Series in ten years. Narrative and praise can be bestowed upon any player, manager, coach, or executive, for their success the past decade. Many in the…
"Shortstop" by Jose Iglesias
This Jose Iglesias catch is too good to leave off the reality tour. Get ready for a decade of comparisons to Andrelton Simmons
All-RE24 Teams
Joe Posnanski, wrote about RE24 three weeks ago : "The statistic is called RE24 because, as you might know, there are 24 different possibilities when a batter comes up in any given inning. There are eight “states.” They…
Royals Fever
This was worthy of more than a simple #subRetweet. Kansas City has Royals fever. Thanks to Ben Badler and Ryan Fagan. @BenBadler A vine for now ... http://t.co/0MQzaG8vFv — Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) September 17,
2013 Ex-Cub Factor
Flipping through the games on TV this past Wednesday night, we saw the Orioles' Scott Feldman strike out New York's Alfonso Soriano just moments before the Rays' David DeJesus worked a walk against Boston's Ryan…
Enjoying the Pennant Races
Talking baseball pennant races around the hype and hysteria of fantasy football madness is about as quaint as asking someone if they've taken a chance to stop and smell the roses lately. A few weeks ago, it seemed like…
Dodgers Magic
It's been a month since our last post. So sad, but necessary. All the Biogenesis and Aroid talk from the past month has pushed me away from the computer. The horribly preachy sportswriting of others, the distraction of…
Best and Worst of MLB's First Half
The Major League Baseball All-Star break is upon us. It's a good time to take a deep dive into a specific analysis because first-half stats are set for a few days. We'll likely get into something this afternoon that…
Everyone is Now Dumber for Having Listened
I don't think I've ever done this before. So, I'll get on the soapbox without apology, as I have to vent at the stubborn establishment of baseball media. Put me in the group of those fed up with these statistics that…
Trade Deadline Dreaming is Believing
We took a look at the trade target for contenders a bit earlier last year, at the start of June. We are only three weeks from this season's non-waiver trade deadline, which gives us a different perspective. Let's see if…
Manny Machado's Throw in Yankee Stadium
The Baltimore Orioles' Manny Machado turned 21-years old yesterday, while in New York for a weekend series with the Yankees. On Manny Machado's 21st birthday, he received word that he made the American League All Star…
Chicago Cubs and The Gleyber Allstars
The Chicago Cubs had a banner day retooling their farm system. In a few years, when the Cubs are looking good and have a surplus of power arms in the organization, we can look back on July 2, 2013. The international…
Colletti Bets on Marmol
The Dodgers traded for exiled Cubs closer Carlos Marmol this morning, sending Matt Guerrier to Chicago. Today is a somber day for Cubs' fans. The team DFA'd Marmol a few days ago, but many expected him to simply end up…
What's Up with Matt Moore?
A month ago, Matt Moore was 8-0 with a 2.21 ERA and looked like a good bet to start the All Star Game. He has arguably been the worst pitcher in the American League since then. It would be a shame if Matt Moore never…
Prospecting for Arms ft. Kyle Gibson
Rumors abound that the Minnesota Twins may be charting out a course for Kyle Gibson to join the Major League team's rotation. He's probably one of the five best starters in the Twins organization, but how much of an…
Rookies on the Rise
This season is shaping up to have a fantastic rookie class. While the American League boasts a couple of baseball's most elite prospects, in Jurickson Profar and Wil Myers , it's been the National League rookies that…
Beaning and Fisting
On Monday afternoon, Jacob Peterson of @JunkStats pointed out an anomaly with Doug Fister 's propensity to hit batters this season. As some of you may know, Doug Fister leads the league with 12 HBP. Jacob pointed out…
Green Wave Arms Race
It's nice to see a pitching prospect at Tulane with a sense of humor. Two months ago, in a piece on Hall of Fame basketball coach Greg Popovich , Joe Posnanski relayed a tale you may remember: Someone asks him how he…
Midweek Musings
This could be the year the Pittsburgh Pirates break their 20-year old postseason drought. It will most certainly be the year they break their 20-year run of finishing below .500. Break the Curse of Sid Bream 's Slide…
2013 MLB Draft Recap
In case you missed it, we're recapping the first round of the 2013 MLB Draft for posterity. Once again, MLB Network is doing a fine job without the help of Kevin Millar or Mitch Williams . The real treat in listening to…
50 Ways to Pick an All-Star Team
Major League Baseball released the All Star Ballots obscenely early this year, about 3 weeks into the season. Below is a link from April 24th. @ mlbonfox @ allstargame it's too early — Bobby Aguilera (@BobbyAguilera)…
Bashing Duda's Gotta End
Photo by Jeff Curry/Getty Images For over a month now, I've noticed media members covering the Mets will disturbingly criticize Lucas Duda for taking too many pitches. On April 24th, Gary Cohen, one of the Mets' TV…
Player of the Fortnight
With no games until this evening, it's as good a time as any to honor the most locked-in players in Baseball. About 20 years ago, a scout told me the best way to quickly see which players are on top of their game is to…
Memorable Tuesday Night Baseball
Matt Harvey was unstoppable tonight. The White Sox never had a chance against him. As just about anyone reading this knows, Harvey went 9 innings, facing 28 batters, retiring 27. After 20-straight outs, Alex Rios ran…
MLB Attendance Trends
One month into the season, let's check out the early returns from box offices around the league. Similar to other statistical analysis, we are dealing with a small sample that could potentially skew results, for…
Surprising Season Stats (Small Sample Size)
Red Sox pitchers have the highest K% and BB% in the American League. Neither statistic is particularly surprising, but the duality of the records is rare. Since 1990, it has happened twice, both by the Cubs: In their…
MLB Ballplayers on Vine
A couple of weeks before getting traded from Oakland to Houston, Travis Blackley set off his first Vine. It was a simple film, six stages of his iced coffee. In other clips, Blackley shares candid moments with his A's…
Penguins Visit the Tampa Bay Rays
Penguins visited the Tampa Bay Rays' clubhouse today, reinforcing the fact that Joe Maddon is a progressive thinker. FWIW, I wouldn't leave Kyle Farnsworth alone with one of those things. Go Rays! I checked with Elias.…
MLB Team-by-Team At-a-Glance
More than half of today's games are matinees, including a couple of 12:35 ET starts in Baltimore and Cincinnati. So, we don't have all afternoon to craft a comprehensive This Moment in Baseball post. Instead, let's run…
2013 Leadoff Hitter Power Rankings
The importance of batting order construction is a polarizing debate. I tend to lean towards evidence that batting order construction ultimately means very little. The one spot in the lineup that tends to be the most…
Quick Notes around Baseball
Starling Marte , of the Pirates, has 2 hits in 4 straight games. Colby Rasmus has 4 this year, 3 of which are home runs. He'll probably hit 20+ HR's and hit .220 for the Blue Jays. Make no mistake, Matt Harvey is a…
What Happened Last Night?
In honor of MLB's first 15-game day, and as we did in June of '09 , we present our brief notes from perusing the box scores, attempting to answer 'What happened last night?' Cubs 0 at Pirates 3 Caught much of this game…
Baseball's Season of the GIF
We have yet to determine the finest GIF from Sunday night's game, but Monday had A.J. Burnett messing around with a white powder . Tuesday night, at a Blue Jays game, a fired up fan caught a bat that flew into the…
A.J. Burnett and Things Fall Apart
Courtesy of something called DeckersDelight on the burgeoning /baseball subreddit, we get an Opening Day gif for the ages , starring the Pittsburgh Pirates' A.J. Burnett and his resin bag. Is it rosin bag? Or, resin…
The Tantalizing Style and Tools of Jairo Beras
The Texas Rangers' toolsie teen prospect, Jairo Beras, is suspended until July 1st but still allowed to play in unofficial, minor league Spring Training games. By the looks of his @jairoberas twitter profile pic, Beras…
Position-by-Position-at-a-Glance
Only a couple of weeks away from Opening Day, let's check in on each position around Major League Baseball. **Catcher** Entering a new golden age, the catcher position boasts top-tier talent: Yadier Molina and his world…
Small Sample Size Much?
How 'bout this insignificant sample size ? #Royals 1B Eric Hosmer with two swinging strikeouts so far after going three for three in Saturday's victory. — Bob Dutton (@Royals_Report) March 3, 2013 The day before, we got…
To Stubbs or Not to Stubbs
The Cleveland Indians made news last week by signing Michael Bourn to a deal worth at least $48 million over 4 years. The new-look Tribe now boasts one of the best defensive outfields in the game, featuring Michael…
Cherry Picking
Today's cherry picked numbers of the day belong to top prospect, turned middle relief star, Brian Matusz of the Baltimore Orioles. Brian Matusz 2012 Split Stats Split G R H BA OBP SLG as Starter 16 59 107 .305 .370 .504…
The Under-.300 OBP / Over-.500 SLG Club
Recent Scott Hairston rumors have him deciding between the Braves, Phillies, Cubs, or either New York team any day now. I took a quick glimpse at his stats and thought "The under-.300 OBP and over-.500 SLG Scott…
Tim Raines: Underrated for Over 30 Years
It's no secret that Tim Raines was underrated during his playing days. During his time on the Hall of Fame ballot, his case for induction has gained steam, similarly to Bert Blyleven 's mostly blog-fueled campaign a few…
"Let Cano Spread His Wings and Fly" -- Huh?
Robinson Cano 's impending contract extension or free agency, has been a recurring theme in the minds of Yankees fans over the past year, or so. A rising number of Yankees fans are growing tired of Cano's salary…
2013 Hall of Fame "Ballot", Part II
Most baseball fans above the age of 10 have been waiting a long time for this year's Hall of Fame ballot. Later today, the Baseball Writers Association of America will release their yearly Hall of Fame voting results.…
Wrigley Field's Vestigial Torco Sign
The famed Torco sign on Sheffiled in 1987... By: Mark Susina via flickr Sheffield, behind the bleachers, began changing... By: Mark Susina via flickr This photo is dated May 26, 2010... By: Mark Susina via flickr…
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