As the All-Star break looms, trading season reaches full throttle. Matt Garza could be something other than a Chicago Cub by the weekend. Buyers and sellers are deciding whether to be buyers or sellers, and… Read more »
Miscellaneous
Don’t Label Me! A very good Matt Garza article on FanGraphs Wednesday ended up leading to a lively Twitter debate that I think is worth fleshing out without character limits in place. I’ll try not… Read more »
The Chicago White Sox are currently among the five worst American League offenses since integration. Let that sink in. Baseball Prospectus has the most useful and readily readable holistic offensive metric available for historical analysis…. Read more »
Before you mock me for the following, please remember that I’m telling you this free of obligation. No one reads my blog, and I’m not sure I published my picks, anyway. I am accepting responsibility… Read more »
In a 5-3 loss to the Miami Marlins Wednesday night, the Minnesota Twins sent 39 batters to the plate. Only six of them swung at the first pitch. The Marlins, in a game they won, threw… Read more »
When my Cubs are rebuilding, as they have been the past few seasons, it becomes hard to invest too much emotion or excitement into their games at about this time of year. It slowly becomes… Read more »
I’ve watched a fair amount of Minnesota Twins second baseman (nee shortstop) Brian Dozier lately. It’s a frustrating, somewhat uneven experience, but for the first time since I first saw him last summer, it’s hard… Read more »
In the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates have had the platoon advantage in a smaller percentage of their plate appearances than all but three teams, a mere 49 percent of the time. Their lineup is… Read more »
The Los Angeles Angels lead the American League by wide margins in times reaching base on error; double plays grounded into; productive outs, as recorded by Elias Sports Bureau; and infield hits. They hit more… Read more »
Starlin Castro got the night off Tuesday in Milwaukee, marking the first Chicago Cubs game of the post-Jim Hendry era in which Castro was not the starting shortstop. His streak of consecutive games without a… Read more »
Not On Target Target Field, while extremely pleasing in terms of architectural aesthetics, is not my favorite place to take in a game. I’m finding, with each new visit, some unpleasant downsides. The contrivances and… Read more »
A few thoughts on just another imperfect day: The Indians and Blue Jays played Opening Day in Toronto yesterday, and although Cleveland won, I came away wondering what Terry Francona is up to with that… Read more »
I was glued to my phone as the At-Bat Lite app (don’t judge me) slowly brought me news of Yu Darvish last night. It was a marvel to watch, even if I wasn’t actually watching…. Read more »
Now that teams outside of Texas have kicked off, more quick notes: Long plate appearances should be a statistic. I might be found embarrassingly incorrect, but it seems to me that certain batters, while able… Read more »
The narrative history of Kevin Towers’ first three years as GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks is going to be fascinating, one way or another. Since the moment he arrived in the desert, he has put… Read more »
A few scattered thoughts now that baseball is back: What a tour de force by Bo Porter. In his debut as an MLB manager, he did two good things that maybe three or four other… Read more »
Sometimes, I really want to float an idle thought or 12 about baseball as they occur to me, but don’t want to hack the idea into pieces for Twitter consumption. So I’m just going to… Read more »
I’m so sick and tired of PEDs, Alex Rodriguez, national baseball columnists and Twitter snark, I’m ready to kill a cat, stuff it in a box and nail the damn thing shut. Or stab my… Read more »
Justin Upton has some of baseball’s most dramatic home/away splits over the past several seasons, so when the Arizona Diamondbacks dealt him to the Atlanta Braves last week, some analysts raised concerns about how Upton… Read more »
The following is from p. 449-450 of The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract: Lee May had a younger brother, Carlos, who also played in the majors. Carlos got 80% of the talent in the family;… Read more »
Michael Bourn is STILL a free agent, which has been a source of some annoyance for me of late, but which today I am counting as a small victory. The intrigue surrounding his predicament is… Read more »
Baseball America podcast, 1/24/13: J.J. Cooper: To me, if you’re the Diamondbacks, you want Delgado, not Teheran, would you agree with that? Matt Eddy: Absolutely. You could find scouts a year ago who preferred Delgado… Read more »
When Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer assumed control of the Chicago Cubs front office in November 2011, and fired incumbent manager Mike Quad almost on the spot, you knew they were going to find their kind… Read more »
We’re basically two weeks from seeing pitchers and catchers in uniforms. Baseball season still feels cruelly distant (for non-believers in the World Baseball Classic), but it’s not much longer that we can truly call this… Read more »
Gordon Beckham ran pretty hot in the summer of 2009. He debuted with the Chicago White Sox in June that year, less than 10 months after signing his first pro contract as the Sox’s first-round… Read more »
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim made the biggest single splash on the free-agent position-player market for the second straight offseason this winter, adding Josh Hamilton on a five-year, $125-million contract. Hamilton hit 43 home… Read more »
It’s another long night, and if I even finish writing this without slip-sliding into incoherence, it will be a minor miracle. No long and well-organized thoughts tonight. Just some thoughts: -The Philadelphia Phillies signed Delmon… Read more »
The Arizona Diamondbacks have been as busy as any team in baseball this winter, and with the Atlanta Braves’ help, they put an exclamation point on that statement this week. They traded Justin Upton, he… Read more »
The Arizona Diamondbacks sent Justin Upton to the Atlanta Braves Thursday, ending a long saga of which everyone was so tired, it hardly matters who won the trade. (The Braves did.) Justin becomes the second… Read more »
Every year, my wife’s siblings and siblings-in-law (it’s a family of 13, so this means 21 people so far) exchange names and give one gift to one other, randomly chosen member of the family. Every… Read more »
