Ben and Sam discuss the next potential star from Cuba and the future of Cuban baseball, then revisit a trade for Wil Myers that didn’t happen.
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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Analysis from the Author’s Grandfather
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Analysis from the Author’s Grandfather
The author, as he writes this, is presently sitting across a breakfast table from his 92-year-old grandfather, a man who not only has opinions, but whose opinions themselves have opinions.
What follows is a small collection of that same grandfather’s opinions on the Boston Red Sox and AL East.
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Regarding Alex Wood’s Resume, Thus Far
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Regarding Alex Wood’s Resume, Thus Far
Introduction
Left-hander Alex Wood, 22, starts tonight (Saturday) against Miami at 7:10pm ET. What follows is a brief examination of his impressive, if short, professional resume.
Hey there, and welcome to exactly what the headline tells you this is. I understand that this is the Internet, and the popular corners of the Internet are mostly populated by pieces with absurdly vague headlines that all but require you to click through for further information. Let’s check out the front page of the Huffington Post. Like, right now. A selection of headlines: “Why We Need to March… Again.” And…well actually this isn’t very interesting. You know what I’m talking about, is the point, and it’s obnoxious, and this isn’t like that. This post is obviously about wild baseball swings from the past week. Here’s a link to the whole series, with wild swings and wild pitches. Maybe this could draw better traffic if I spruced it up with something more leading and sexy, but we don’t care about raw traffic. We care about quality traffic, like each one of you. Hold on a second, I’m getting a call from the boss, says it’s “urgent.”
-all right, we’re back, with terrible swings at low breaking balls like always. The window analyzed: August 2 through August 8, which was yesterday! If you’re reading this on August 9. The wildest swings are those swings at pitches furthest from the center of the strike zone, and based on history they tend to be swings at two-strike offspeed stuff in the dirt. I excluded ugly checked swings by Darin Ruf and John Lannan, against Jordan Walden and Brandon Beachy, respectively. Those happened in the same game. What I didn’t exclude is what follows. Check it out! You’re already here.
Hey there, people who wish more days were like Friday, and welcome to this part of the Internet. There are many parts of the Internet, so many countless parts of the Internet, and the Internet is expanding every second of every day. Given the freedom, you can go to pretty much any part of the Internet that you want, which makes the idea of a dedicated audience laughable. Sure, people might like something, but the instant it disappoints, they might go to something else, something that hasn’t disappointed them yet. Because there are infinite options, so many of them with clickbait-y headlines, so why stand for disappointment? The Internet audience has high expectations and an unwillingness to lower them, and it’s a miracle anything ever succeeds over an extended period of time. So thanks a lot, Internet, for causing my sometimes unbearable, unmanageable anxiety. Here are all of the posts in the The Worst Of The Best series. I will do everything I can to keep you feeling reasonably satisfied.
We’re back to normal weekly intervals, now, with July decidedly behind us. What you’re going to see are the wildest pitches from between August 2 and August 8, as determined by distance from the center of the strike zone, as determined by mathematical calculation, as supported by PITCHf/x, as made possible by cameras, as made possible by magic. The process behind this post, the act of reading this post, the images within this post — magic. There are going to be a lot of images. Some wild pitches just missing this list: Samuel Deduno to Alcides Escobar on August 7, Francisco Rodriguez to Jesus Guzman on August 7, and Francisco Rodriguez to Rene Rivera on August 7. August 7 was a wild day, especially for Francisco Rodriguez. But I’ll tell you now for some reason, you’re still about to see the Rodriguez/Rivera delivery. Why? Felt like it. I’ll explain. Scroll down for baseball.
Not everyone liked Dave Parker. Certainly the fans who threw things at him in the Pittsburgh outfield, slashed the roof of his convertible and even threatened his life could be counted in this camp. Pundits who may have poured cold water on Parker’s Hall of Fame candidacy thanks to his involvement in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials might also find themselves in this camp. But whether you loved him or hated him, Parker was always one of the game’s most entertaining and best players, and his recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease shouldn’t overshadow that fact.
The non-waiver trade deadline was last week, but when it comes to high-priced assets, August is just as good a time to complete a trade as any. The Rangers were willing to pay the price tag on Alex Rios, and nobody with a worse record in the American League felt the same. The reports are that the player to be named later (a quirk of waiver trading) is Leury Garcia, and that’s a price that these Rangers can afford to pay in order to improve their odds of postseason play.
Matt Holliday is not having a great year. It would be hard to say he is having a bad year, exactly, since he has hit .281/.362/.446 (128 wRC+) for the Cardinals, who are still within striking distance of the Pirates for first place in the Central, and as of today would be the top National League Wildcard team.
Holliday is clearly not playing up to his past standard, though. His 128 wRC+ is his worst since 2005, and his power, in particular, has dropped off, as he has only a a .165 ISO — the worst of his career. While some defensive metrics (somewhat controversially) used to see him as a good left fielder, the last couple of seasons even those that used to like his fielding have seen him as decidedly poor. Holliday has also missed more games than usual this year due to nagging injuries. He is also grounding into double plays at a rather frightening, Billy-Butler-in-2010 rate.
Still, all of that in itself would not necessarily be a problem for Holliday given his bat. The issue is that Holliday is 33, is making $17 million this year, and is guaranteed that same amount every season through 2016. Some of that money is deferred, but that is still a lot of money for a declining outfielder in his thirties.
| 11:52 |
: I’m running a couple minutes behind but we’ll get started in about 10-15 minutes… Get your prospect questions in now!
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| 12:04 |
I traded Jose Fernandez and Granderson for Kershaw in a year to year mixer. Good deal for me? |
| 12:05 |
: It’s hard to get better than Kershaw and if your league uses wins then he’s definitely more likely to help you than Fernandez…
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| 12:05 |
Do you expect the Pirates will call up Lambo any time soon, and, if so, will he be a valuable contributor? |
| 12:06 |
: I mentioned this last week, too… Lambo is more of a quad-A guy and possible bench contributor at the big league level than true starting marterial
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| 12:06 |
Is Bogaerts ready for a major-league trial? And is there any risk to his development by bringing him up? |
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Speed and Defense Leaders, Laggards
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Speed and Defense Leaders, Laggards
Introduction
This past November the author wrote a piece examining the value of elite speed as measured in wins — which it to say, those sorts of wins as might be produced by baserunning and (in this case) outfield defense.
What follows is a sort of conceptual relative of that brief study, insofar as the object has been to identify those players who have been most productive this season by means of baserunning and defensive ability alone. What the author has done is find, for each player, both his baserunning runs and also his total of defensive runs saved (UZR) with the positional adjustment from WAR included.
While the caveats regarding single-season defensive numbers absolutely apply in this instance, one will also observe that, by including positional adjustments, as well, that the effect of the volatility of those same numbers over a small sample is somewhat muted.