Bryce Harper Returns To Nats Lineup, But Where

Yankees, Jeter, Red Sox, Girardi, Tanaka, Sabermetrics, silly grand predictions, get off my lawn…
(hopefully that pushes all the right buttons to get this posted before the end of the regular season.)

For more than two months, Matt Williams has been waiting to fill out a lineup card that includes Bryce Harper in it. And for several weeks, the Nationals’ first-time manager has been contemplating just how much he wants to shake up the rest of his lineup as a result of Harper’s return.

The ...

Awful Announcing - RETHINKING BASEBALL ON NATIONAL TELEVISION

There’s a stigma attached to writing about baseball’s predicament on television. Mostly, the idea that if you write about it, you’re proclaiming the death of the sport. It’s fair that the people who love it (which includes me) defend it, because as we’ve seen with soccer, sometimes it’s worth defending the thing that you like more than almost anything.

Fact is, however, that Major League Baseball has a national television problem. Sunday Night Baseball is doing fine, but ESPN still ...

Leaked: 10 Months Of The Houston Astros’ Internal Trade Talks

Some of these asks were just foolish.

Two years ago, the Houston Astros constructed “Ground Control”—a built-from-scratch online database for the private use of the Astros front office. It is by all accounts a marvel, an easy-to-use interface giving executives instant access to player statistics, video, and communications with other front offices around baseball. All it needs, apparently, is a little better password protection.
....
7/26/2013
[Nationals GM Mike] Rizzo called [Luhnow] to ...

Melewski: The scoop on Schoop: Showalter on his rookie second baseman

Jezus, how do you defend a 65 OPS+‘er…Buck Showalter finds a way.

“Think it’s more a challenge mentally and emotionally than anything,” Showalter said. “The thing I like (is) his defense hasn’t suffered. He knows, it gets harped on, bring something every game. How are you going to impact this game?

“You don’t get frustrated with them, you get frustrated for them. Because we feel like Jon is going to be a good hitter up here and there are things you go through. You know Manny (Machado), maybe ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-30-2014

New York Tribune, June 30, 1914:

A near-riot marked the first game of the Cincinnati-Chicago series [in Chicago yesterday], which the Cubs won by a score of 10 to 7. In the visitors’ sixth inning Moran fouled down the third base line. Hoblitzell protested to Eason, the umpire, that the hit was fair and was ordered to the clubhouse. Charley Herzog ran into the argument and was ordered to join Hoblitzell.

A few moments later one of the players took Moran’s bat and threw it toward the players’ ...

Will soccer’s gain be baseball’s loss?

When the 2014 World Cup concludes, soccer isn’t going to disappear the way it typically has. Major League Soccer is growing in influence and popularity in traditional sports cities. More significant, major networks such as ESPN, Fox, and NBC Sports have adopted the sport.

In particular, ESPN’s awesome communications machinery is committed, to an unprecedented extent, to growing the world’s most popular game in America.

And if the 21st century has taught us any important sports lesson, it’s ...

Bill Madden: An Old Brew GM

Melvin’s: With Yo’ Eyes, Not Yo’ Stats. (King Buzzkill)

For a guy whose team has just had the best first-half in the 45-year history of the franchise, Milwaukee Brewers GM Doug Melvin is sounding pretty grumpy about the state of baseball these days. Maybe it’s because the 62-year-old Melvin, an old school GM who values scouts over Ivy League whiz kid stat geeks, thinks his NL Central-leading Brewers deserve a little more respect from the Sabermetrics crowd. “There’s this one guy,” ...

Caputo: Several more Detroit athletes are HOF worthy

Sabermetrics rule!

2. Alan Trammell – It is incredible Trammell only gets a relatively small percentage of the votes for the Hall of Fame. The baseball-reference version of the Sabermetrics statistic WAR rates him as the 93rd best MLB player of all time. He filled a premier position brilliantly, shortstop, and was a World Series MVP. He was robbed of the American League MVP Award he richly deserved in 1987, placing second behind overrated Blue Jays’ outfielder George Bell. Trammell was ...

Jerry Green: MLB Sabermetrics geeks quick to make silly grand proclamations

And all hail SABR’s Alex Bensky in the comment’s section!

This was considerably before Bill James learned to count to two. So it was somewhat before the creation of Sabermetrics with its collection of numbers freaks. This is the group of baseball intelligentsia who pay homage to James with the mystical belief that statistics never mattered until such arcane data as WAR and OPS were concocted.

Bradley’s gem also was somewhat before Clayton Kershaw’s recent no-hitter for the Dodgers was ...

Leitch: Billy Beane’s Ascendant A’s Are Playing a Brand-New Brand of Moneyball

But, but…Harold Reynolds said “the A’s aren’t going to win because they make too many errors.”

Except: The A’s didn’t actually end up trumping anybody. Moneyball the movie and the book are the rare inspirational sports stories that end with a big game … that the little guys lose. And, all told, after Moneyball came out, the A’s went through an eight-year stretch where they made the playoffs only once. This led to some mockery inside the baseball industry, particularly among those ...

OMNICHATTER 6-29-2014

Bartolo Colon will be hitting today!

Mike Napoli calls Masahiro Tanaka an ‘idiot’ after hitting game-winning home run to beat Yankees

Dum Dum boys.

Masahiro Tanaka probably would agree.

If, in a tie game, you throw a two-strike, two-out pitch over the middle of the plate to a hitter who can knock the ball out of the ballpark—with first base open and a guy on deck who couldn’t get a hit with a tennis racket—well, you’ve just made a colossal mistake.

And so, after first baseman Mike Napoli lined Tanaka’s belt-high fastball into the first row of the right-field bleachers on Saturday night for his 10th home run, giving the ...

BP Unfiltered: Ross Detwiler and the All-Fastball All-Stars

In his game-extending appearance, the lefty struck out two and walked one (intentionally), which was pretty darn Detwiler, though he did get six grounders without allowing a ball in the air and threw 32 strikes in 42 pitches (apart from the free pass). What really stood out about the outing, aside from the zeroes, was Detwiler’s pitch selection, which varied less than the song selection at a Kanye West/Jay Z “Watch the Thrones” show.

“I don’t remember an off-speed pitch,” Brewers ...

BtBS: The Home Run Derby doesn’t affect some types of hitters more

We keep hearing, though, that players whose swings aren’t built for home runs are particularly susceptible to getting out of whack because of a Derby. Is that true? Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer suffered wOBA drops in 2009 (.046 and .027, respectively), and other hitters who aren’t necessarily thought of as power-first guys have made up a pretty big chunk of the group of 40.

Taking the leap that power-first guys are also pull-first guys, I computed the percentage of the time that each of the 40 ...

Scarpetta leads Lynchburg to second straight no-hitter:  Braves’ Carolina League affiliate holds Wilmington hitless for second consecutive night

For two nights, Class A Advanced Lynchburg’s pitching staff has been unhittable. After Braves’ No. 1 prospect Lucas Sims and Alex Wilson combined for a no-hitter Thursday night against Wilmington, Cody Scarpetta and Benino Pruneda combined for a no-hitter of their own Friday, as the Hillcats defeated the Blue Rocks, 5-0.

Shaikin: For sake of argument, baseball’s replay review system has a downside

Of the 598 plays reviewed through Thursday, the call was overturned almost half the time — on 278 occasions, or 46.5%, according to Major League Baseball.

“There is a challenge every night,” Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier said. “I don’t think there was a manager coming out to argue every night.”

In preparation for replay expansion, league officials reviewed video from last year’s games and determined one call every six games would be challenged, according to Joe Torre, the executive vice ...

Holmes: Tigers’ radio team makes it difficult to tune in

Go, Jim & Dan
Go, Jim & Dan
Go, Jim & Dan…Please!

I am this close…(imagine thumb and forefinger about an inch apart)…from taking a baseball bat to my car radio.

I’ve been in my car a lot recently and it’s given me the opportunity to listen to Detroit Tigers’ games on the radio. As you’ll learn, I mean “opportunity” as in: we have an “opportunity” to get a root canal. It’s like someone’s invading a hole in my head and inflicting pain.

That’s what it’s like to ...

Kawakami: Is Tim Lincecum on Hall of Fame path?

Cooperstown path? A Glimmerglass of hope.

I know Stats Guys hate using wins as a measure of anything, but in Hall of Fame discussion it’s a good way to canvass a starting pitcher’s full breadth of a career—did he last, was he durable, did he have individual success just on a W-L basis?

Wins and losses absolutely ARE NOT the singular way to judge a pitcher’s career, but it’s a way to begin the discussion. In my opinion. The Stats Club is free to hate it.

However you look at it, Lincecum ...

OMNICHATTER 6-28-2014

Tanaka! Darvish! Greinke! Samardzija! Sale! Gray! Scherzer! Hughes!

Hughes?

Sorry, still not used to that.

Mike Trout belts 489-foot home run

Mike Trout set team and stadium records for home run distance Friday, belting a 489-foot tape-measure solo shot to center field in the first inning of the Los Angeles Angels’ game against the Kansas City Royals.

Ben Reiter: Astro-Matic Baseball

A must read…

Other criticisms have surfaced more recently. In an article published in the Houston Chronicle on May 25—the day, as it turned out, the Astros began a seven-game winning streak—beat writer Evan Drellich detailed the ways in which, as the headline read, radical ways paint astros as ‘outcast.’ “They are definitely the outcast of major league baseball right now, and it’s kind of frustrating for everyone else to have to watch it,” Norris, who was traded to the Orioles ...

Chris Young is Twice as Likely to be Benched After a Good Game Than an Oh-Fer: Why Terry Collins is the Worst

Then, I looked to see what happened after each of those games, at whether Young started or was benched for the next team game.  The results are… perplexing. For the last month, from May 29th to the present, Young has had 8 “good games” and 7 “bad games” where the Mets had a game the next day.

After the “bad games”, he was started 57% of the time and benched 42% of the time.

However after the “good games”, he was started 25% of the time and benched 75% of the time.

  ...Read More...

Castrovince: Beltre’s numbers could be enough for Cooperstown

Here’s a look at Beltre by the numbers, both standard and advanced:

11: The number of Hall of Famers from the Major Leagues in the modern era who spent a majority of their time at third base: Home Run Baker, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Jimmy Collins, George Kell, Freddie Lindstrom, Eddie Mathews, Brooks Robinson, Ron Santo, Mike Schmidt and Pie Traynor. (Paul Molitor is listed by the Hall as a third baseman, but he spent significantly more games at designated hitter).

5: The number of those ...

Tidewater News: James D. Howell: Baseball and booze

I have this narrowed down to who this is but…

My brother was much older than me; we were separated by much more than age. He attended high school in Franklin and excelled at baseball. When WWII came, he and my oldest brother found jobs at the Newport News shipbuilding yards. Both my brothers learned trades that would provide them with a livelihood during their later, peacetime lives.

Baseball remained a part of my brother’s life; he played for teams made up to provide recreation for the ...

Mushnick: Keith Hernandez goes from insightful to bully in one inning

The FB BULLY Project has 642,873 likes, so let’s keep at it!

But in the next half inning, he went from enlightened analyst to schoolyard bully Nelson “Ha-Ha!” Muntz. SNY presented a photo of Padres pitcher Alex Torres from the night before, wearing a cap that bulged at its sides from a protective liner.

Yes, Torres looked odd. Yet, clearly, if he were determined to diminish the chances of a fractured skull or brain injury from a line drive to the side of his head, his head, if not his ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-27-2014

Milwaukee Journal, June 27, 1914:

Charlie Meara, the sensational batter, who was bought by Frank Chance from the Perth Amboy club, has explained his ability to hit. He made 24 hits in forty-two times at bat—5 homers, 4 triplets [sic] and 1 double.

“It’s a funny story,” says Meara. “When I was 5 years old my parents moved to New Jersey. The mosquitoes down there were bad, and it was my job to keep them out of the cottage when any one opened the door. After four years of practice I got so I ...

OMNICHATTER 6-27-2014

The “Let’s See if Verlander Is Really Back To Normal” OMNICHATTER

Rick Cerone: “Robinson Cano . . . what a fool!”

You can’t spell Encore Rick (that’s what we used to yell to him after his 1980 outlier season) without Rick Cerone.

Former Yankees catcher Rick Cerone was on SiriusXM’s Fantasy Sports Radio channel with hosts Scott Engel and Adam Ronis today, and he had some pretty strong opinions about Robinson Cano signing with the Mariners:

  Host/Scott Engel:  “Robinson Cano in Seattle, why is he not hitting for power?”

  Rick Cerone:  “Big ballpark.  Big mistake.  No backup.  No protection ...

Schoenfeld: Mike Trout’s Hall of Fame Timeline

Only if Trout can replicate and not be an old fart at play.

One of the largest debates in Hall of Fame discussion is that of peak vs. longevity. We know neither Trout’s peak numbers, nor his longevity. His body is not one that alludes to an enduring career, and while pessimistic, it’s not far-fetched to think that Trout may already have reached his ceiling. Before we get into hypotheticals, let’s look at where his case stands as of today.

He has produced 24.7 rWAR, and is on pace to end the ...

Schoenfield: Lincecum still has it, at least against Padres

To be honest, I’m not sure if this says more about Tim Lincecum or the struggling, offensively inept San Diego Padres.

I mean, if you were to grade each no-hitter on a degree of difficulty scale from 1 to 10, factoring in the strength of the opponent, the ballpark and the weather, a no-hitter against the Padres at AT&T Park on a gray, hazy day would have to be a 1.

Still ... a no-hitter is a no-hitter, they’re always fun and there’s always a good story behind each one. Retiring 27 ...