Honesty compels me to report that Games Three and Four of the American League Championship Series were sort of boring. Sure, Game Three stayed tied until the bottom of the sixth inning, and sure, both… Read more »
Miscellaneous
Pitchers Make Mistakes The first 15 pitches St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher John Lackey threw to San Francisco Giants batters on Tuesday were four-seam fastballs. It was the darnedest thing. Lackey isn’t a guy who… Read more »
In American sport, the playoffs are always a time for heroes. I should amend that. The playoffs are the time for heroes. A tremendous player can be cast as somehow deficient if he never meets his usual… Read more »
There’s one 30-game hot streak to which the Kansas City Royals owe their presence in the 2014 MLB Postseason. It came in late July, after a brief stumble out of the All-Star break, when the… Read more »
While I’m warming to the idea of the dual Wild Card system (this may be some A’s-Royals afterglow; forgive me), I’m not wild about the concept of reducing an entire baseball season to a single… Read more »
I’m not a fan of the second Wild Card. I dislike the feeling of artificial drama, and for a long season of baseball games to come down to one arbitrary contest feels wrong to me…. Read more »
If you’ve had a conversation about baseball during the last year, you have probably heard some variation on a too-common theme: “God, and the games are SOOOO LOOOONNNNGGGG. What are we gonna DO?” First of… Read more »
The Detroit Tigers are fighting for their playoff lives, hoping an impressive in-season transaction will be enough to wash out the ill effects of an off-season move they never should have made. The Seattle Mariners… Read more »
Jose Fernandez is hurt, and Baseball Twitter is in tears. Jose Fernandez is hurt, and the Miami Marlins’ hope of contending this season is gone. Jose Fernandez is hurt, and everyone is sad. Except me. Honestly, I’ve felt… Read more »
As is my wont, I’m giving Friday over to some rapid-fire observations and notes, from all over the place: Every batter’s optimal plate approach is different. Some guys should swing much more often, especially in… Read more »
The life of a two-pitch starting pitcher is a difficult one. If either of your go-to offerings isn’t working on a given night, you’re in deep trouble, trying to pitch around a fundamental weakness and… Read more »
This is Chicago Cubs outfield prospect Jacob Hannemann. He’s off to a strong, if somewhat short of dazzling, start for the Kane County Cougars of the Midwest League. Hannemann was the Cubs’ third-round choice in… Read more »
I could probably make three articles from this, but I’ll run through the condensed version of each finding here instead, for concision’s sake: -Late last week, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs wrote a quick post about the… Read more »
In late August 1993, police responded to a 911 call from the home of Barry Bonds. It was Bonds’s wife, Sun, who had called, and she told the responding officers that, among other things, Bonds… Read more »
Regular readers (all four of you) will be familiar with this exercise. I began it last week. These are power rankings, my best estimate of true, relative team quality, listed from last to first, with… Read more »
I’m a guest on Tuesday’s edition of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. It was a thrill for me, as one who has listened to all 430-plus episodes of the podcast thus far. Co-hosts Ben Lindbergh… Read more »
The Houston Astros completed a senseless development process for a top prospect Tuesday, announcing that they will promote George Springer to the Major Leagues Wednesday. Springer, 24, was their first-round pick in 2011, and hasn’t stopped… Read more »
Heroism is in short supply, anymore. In fact, since the end of World War II, the number of people American society has called ‘hero’ has been in steady, steep, inexorable decline. Politicians used to be… Read more »
Just a few quick things this morning, issues that have my attention right now: Stop the Bellyaching About Replay: I can’t believe the number of people complaining about the expanded instant-replay system in the early… Read more »
Michael Pineda had pine tar on his hand for the first half of the New York Yankees’ tilt with the Boston Red Sox Thursday night. Baseball Twitter noticed, flooding everyone with screenshots pulled from the… Read more »
I don’t get to a great many live baseball games. I live in the Twin Cities area, which means any affiliate minor-league ball is a five-hour drive away, and the cost of going to MLB… Read more »
You’re the Commissioner of Baseball, and there’s a gun to your head. The masked man forces you to make a substantial change to baseball’s rules governing games tied at the end of nine innings. In… Read more »
Didi Gregorius is playing second base for the Triple-A Reno Aces right now, waiting for an injury or some massive failure to open a spot for him on the Arizona Diamondbacks’ roster. Gregorius was Arizona’s… Read more »
Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Gerardo Parra got famous for his defensive highlight reel last season, and some defensive measurement systems credited him with 40 or so runs of value added with the glove. You should always… Read more »
An exercise in summary, inspired by Bill James: The 2014 Cubs in 25 words: The climax of the season will be the trade deadline. A young team, they’re still a year away. Yet, their talent… Read more »
Last week, Derek Jeter announced that he will retire at the end of the 2014 season. The news was a surprise to virtually no one—Jeter was hobbled and ineffective during a stunningly short stint in… Read more »
After the 2008 and 2009 seasons, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus rated Josh Vitters as the Chicago Cubs’ top prospect. After the 2010 and 2011 campaigns, he bestowed that honor on Brett Jackson. Vitters was… Read more »
The Chicago Cubs’ bullpen was a mess in 2013. The collective 4.04 ERA posted by the relief corps ranked 25th in the Major Leagues, and only three teams fared worse in save opportunities than did… Read more »
Fifteen years ago, there were still MLB teams using 10-man pitching staffs for significant stretches of the season. A decade ago, just about everyone was using 11. Five years ago, 12 became the norm, and… Read more »
The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced its 2014 induction class Wednesday, with the Baseball Writers Association of America voting in Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas. There were many deserving names missing from the list… Read more »
