Hello there friends and normals and industry professionals, and welcome to the first part of the seventh edition of The Worst Of The Best. The first part of the sixth edition, from last Friday, is linked here for your convenience. Now, that was some week of baseball we just watched, starting last Friday. There were so many comebacks and close competitions, and also some scores that were surprisingly lopsided. Did you see the big game? I couldn’t believe the hits that there were. I was really impressed by the level of play, and the outcome was well earned. Maybe they will be able to build off of it going forward in the rest of the season. But one thing’s for sure: the season is long, with many twists and turns. You never know what could happen next!

This is where we talk about pitches that wound up really far from the center of the strike zone. The window we’re covering this time is May 17 – May 23. It’s a top-five list, based on PITCHf/x information, and there are going to be a lot of .gifs and screenshots. I feel like every week I end up with more image files than the week before. This series idea seemed so simple at first. Now it consumes my entire Friday. You guys get everything I have. Some pitches just narrowly missing: Rafael Soriano to Gregor Blanco on May 21, and Jeremy Hellickson to Melky Cabrera on May 22. Also, I’ve excluded a Ronald Belisario pitch to Jonathan Lucroy from May 21. Though it was the week’s third-wildest pitch, it appeared to be a fastball intentionally thrown behind Lucroy’s back, after Andre Ethier was buzzed a couple times. I can’t call a pitch wild when it’s intended to send a message. But, maybe it was an accident. A very convenient and coincidental accident. In that case, this would be my mistake. Thankfully no one holds me accountable for anything. I doubt my superiors even read this. If they do, they are charming fellows. If they don’t, they smell. Time to pull you guys back in with the start of the list. This got out of hand.

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Earlier this week, the Rockies sent Josh Rutledge to Colorado Springs. To be certain, Rutledge was not playing well, and there is a decent chance that Rutledge really isn’t that good in general. Then again, he may also need to just figure out who he is. He was semi-rushed to the majors, as he skipped Triple-A, and there is anecdotal evidence that his game has changed since his hot start.

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Episode 340
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books, now — one of them serviceable and one of them, against all odds, something more than serviceable. In this edition of FanGraphs Audio, he mixes business with other, different business.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 53 min play time.)

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Perhaps the Pirates are just doing their thing. You know, the thing from the last couple of years where they start out hot despite no one having them as contenders. The thing were they inspire writers to start writing about them. The thing where they might even make some sort of minor trade near the break to push them over the top. The thing where they collapse in the second half and everyone ends up wonder if the Pirates are ever going to be good again.

But we are not to the collapse point yet. At the moment, the Pirates are 29-15 and tied with the Reds for second in the National League Central, 1.5 games back from the Cardinals. They are managing this despite giving Jonathan Sanchez four starts. A.J. Burnett, of all people, has carried the pitching staff (although Jeff Locke has also been good, ERA-wise). On offense, Starling Marte, Russell Martin, and Gaby Sanchez have been off to surprisingly hot starts, which has helped, too. The Pirates are outplaying their run differential at the moment, but those wins are in the bank, and they are currently projected to finish with 87 wins. That might very well end up looking silly at the end of the year, but for now, I’m sure Pirates fans will take it.

What is striking about the Pirates hanging in there so far this season is that they have done it without Andrew McCutchen repeating his MVP-level performance from last year, when he hit .327/.400/.553 (158 wRC+) with 31 home runs. McCutchen has hardly been bad in 2013 — .291/.353/.477 (128 wRC+) with his usual good base running is plenty from a center fielder. It is a bit surprising, as someone mentioned to me, to see the Pirates in the mix for the division without McCutchen carrying the team.

It would be worth looking at the other players mentioned above to see what is going on with them, and perhaps that is for another post. Today I simply want to see what is going on with McCutchen — what has and has not changed, in terms of his rate stats, from last year, and what it might indicate about his performance going forward.

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With the Dodgers in last place and Yasiel Puig on fire in Double-A, pressure to call up the Cuban outfielder is building. In his last ten games, the 22-year-old has posted a .395/.465/.658 slash line, including seven extra base hits and six steals. Healthy and productive, Puig is once again knocking on the door to Los Angeles.

Earlier in the week, Dave Cameron discussed Andre Ethier being “eminently available” after comments and a benching by Manager Don Mattingly. Combine losing with mammoth contracts and the potential for roster shakeup seems inevitable. No individual stands to gain more than Yasiel Puig if this occurs. Read the rest of this entry »

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. Three Types of Chart Regarding Kevin Gausman
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Three Types of Chart Regarding Kevin Gausman
Introduction
Much praised Baltimore right-hander Kevin Gausman made his major-league debut on Thursday, during which he demonstrated considerable promise but also ultimately conceded four runs in five innings (box). Below are three charts and/or graphs relevant to that debut.

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­Coming off the first batting Triple Crown in 45 years, Miguel Cabrera ­is making a bid to  be the first hitter to do so in consecutive seasons.  He currently leads the American League in batting average (.391), RBI (55) and is one home run off the pace at 14.  In a recent piece here at FanGraphs, Jeff Sullivan commented on Cabrera’s impressive all fields hitting and ability to cover the full strike zone with power.  I have put together some imagery to highlight this ability and show a bit of why Cabrera is such a threat.

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Ben and Sam discuss how the Jesus Montero-Michael Pineda trade has turned out so far, then talk about your ticket refund/giveaway ideas.

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A little over a year ago I published the results of a study that examined which metrics were most consistent on a year-to-year basis for starting pitchers. My colleague, Matt Klaassen, followed up and expanded on that study recently here at FanGraphs. Matt’s study also focused on starting pitchers–those with a minimum of 140 innings pitched in consecutive years.

Recently I was asked the following on Twitter:

@billpetti have you ever done research on reliever year-to-year performance variability? I’d like to see the common wisdom tested

— Justin Overfelt (@j_felt08) May 21, 2013

I can’t speak specifically to what the common wisdom is Justin is referring to, but I can certainly run the correlations for relief pitchers and compare them to what I found for starters.

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