The injuries keep coming for the Boston Red Sox. The most recent victim is off-season acquisition Cody Ross, who is out indefinitely with a fractured bone in his foot. With Ross now on the disabled list, all three of the Red Sox projected starters in the outfield are currently injured. While the Red Sox have struggled this season, they are only 6.5 games out of first place. But the injuries will make it difficult to close the gap.
Brendan Ryan is the best defensive shortstop in baseball, despite what Gold Glove voters want you to believe. The slick-fielding Mariner is annually snubbed, but he boasts the highest UZR at his position during the past three-plus seasons. The Fielding Bible panelists have noticed. They awarded him their own Gold Gloves in 2010 and 2011. Most Seattle fans have, as well, although they probably wouldn’t mind a little more offense. Doing his best Ray Oyler impersonation, Ryan is currently hitting just .165/.288/.248.
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David Laurila: Why are you a good defensive shortstop?
Brendan Ryan: I take a lot of pride on the defensive side. Even going back to high school, it is something that has come a little bit easier to me. I also came up in the Cardinals system and worked with Jose Oquendo. He really helped me simplify my footwork, and everything else. We spent hours and hours and hours working together. Beyond that, you have to throw in instincts, you have to throw in positioning — all of that stuff. It’s kind of a hard question to answer.
DL: The Fielding Bible rates you as the top defensive shortstop in baseball. Does that make up for not winning a Gold Glove?
BR: It’s definitely been a little bit frustrating. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a strange season for Detroit Tigers stater Max Scherzer and its only the third week of May. Well, maybe strange is too strong of a word. Perhaps interesting is a better choice. And it certainly has been interesting.
Scherzer’s first start of the season, on April 8 against the Boston Red Sox, ended after only 2 2/3 innings. The righty gave up seven runs on eight hits and two walks and was pulled before the end of the third inning. Of his 80 pitches, there were 51 strikes — 16 called strikes and four swing-throughs. The other 31 strikes were either hits or foul balls. Velocity didn’t appear to be an issue. His fastball averaged 93.5 mph, his two-seamer averaged 94.6, his slider averaged 86.6 and his change-up averaged 85.1 — all faster speeds than he recorded on average in 2011. But he threw too many pitches over the heart of the plate, resulting in hits and runs.
Episode 183
David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA), curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, talks both to Indians rock-and-roll pitching coach Scott Radinsky and also closer Chris Perez.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 19 min. play time.)
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Yesterday, the transformation from setup man to closer came full circle for Aroldis Chapman, as he protected a three-run lead for the Reds in earning his second career save. With the move, Sean Marshall has been consigned back to his former role of setup man. Marshall’s early failures however, don’t mean that he doesn’t have closer’s stuff.
In the great American tradition of “belaboring the point,” the author presents here another installment in an ongoing consideration of baseball’s various radio and television broadcasts — a project, it should be said, that has been greatly aided by the efforts of our readership.
Against all odds, this post actually does add something to the conversation. In fact, it might be the most important addition, in that it comes closest to answering a question entirely relevant to consumers of over-the-air baseball — especially the sort who read FanGraphs.
On both the PC* and PlayStation 3 (and perhaps some other) versions of MLB.TV, it’s possible to select an audio feed to accompany the video of a selected game. The question that has often occured to the author — and very likely to many readers, as well — is, “Which audio feed is likely to best complement the video of this game?” Or, alternatively: “Which audio feed won’t compel me to perform acts of violence against my person?”
*Provided the NexDef plug-in — the efficacy of which is a different conversation — is installed.
During the first month of the season, you seemingly couldn’t watch a game without seeing a pitcher throwing at reduced velocity to what he’d shown in the past. Between Tim Lincecum, CC Sabathia, Felix Hernandez, Justin Masterson, and Roy Halladay, MLB had a long and distinguished list of starters who weren’t throwing as hard as they had in prior years. However, April is known for the lowest temperatures of the season, and colder weather is historically associated with lower pitch speeds, so there were reasons to think that many of these pitchers would find their fastballs again as we got closer to summer.
And, as expected, many of the reduced velocity guys in April have been throwing harder in the first three weeks of May. Because we’re still called FanGraphs, let’s illustrate these gains with graphs.
The St. Louis Cardinals’ playoff hunt took a huge hit with the loss of veteran first baseman Lance Berkman to a possible torn ACL. The injury could end his 2012 season – and possibly his career. Most clubs would be left scrambling for a veteran trade replacement – especially after also losing a perennial all-star like Albert Pujols in the off-season – but the Cardinals have one of the Top 3 first base prospects in the game.
Along with the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo and Houston’s Jonathan Singleton, triple-A first baseman Matt Adams has the potential to be an impact bat at the big league level. Prior to the season I ranked Adams as the organization’s eighth-best prospect in the system but left him off the Top 100 prospects list.
When Lance Berkman had to be helped off the field on Saturday, he feared his knee issue was serious. Today’s MRI will give an official confirmation, but early word is that he’s suffered a torn ACL and is done for the season. His comments about that possibility yesterday indicated that this might be a career ending injury for Berkman:
“If I’ve re-torn my ACL or something like that, I’d certainly get it fixed but you don’t know how psychologically you’re going to come back from something like that,” Berkman said. “I’m not talking from the standpoint of being scared of hurting it again. I’m talking about doing everything it takes to come back and play again at an elite level. I think that’s a legitimate question I’m going to have to answer if, in fact, it turns out to be something more serious than we hope that it is.
If this really is the end for Berkman, then the next question about his career becomes whether or not he accomplished enough to be worthy of induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
