Maybe you’ve heard. Jonathan Lucroy is good at framing pitches. According to Jeff Sullivan’s most recent post on the subject, third-best in the league and the current first-best starting catcher. So he’s good at framing. But he doesn’t call it framing. And when he describes how and why he got good at it, it doesn’t sound like much of a mystery. It’s just the natural result of years of hard work.

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Like most teams, the New York Mets are into the numbers. They may not be at the forefront of analytics, but they are by no means stuck in the stone age when it comes to using data. Ian Levin is part of the organization’s saber-savvy brain trust.

Formerly the coordinator of amateur scouting, Levin currently serves as the team’s manager of baseball analytics. Last week he was part of the scouting panel at SABR 43. Afterwards, he discussed the Mets data-evaluation process. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam do a grab-bag episode on an assortment of topics, including Kenley Jansen’s hidden perfect game, Phillies outfielder updates, teams that own other teams, and a comment by Kerry Wood.

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To the best of my knowledge, there has only been one Muslim player in the history of major league baseball: Sam Khalifa, a Pirates backup shortstop who played 164 games in the 1980s before retiring following his father’s unexpected murder. (His Egyptian father, Rashad Khalifa, was a heterodox Muslim scholar in Tucson, Arizona, where Sam Khalifa grew up. Sam is now a baseball coach at his old high school, Sahuaro.)

Other American sports have featured well-known Muslims — Nigerian Hakeem Olajuwon and American Shareef Abdur-Raheem in the NBA; Americans Ahmad Rashad and Az-Zahir Hakim in the NFL; Lebanese-Canadian Nazem Kadri in the NHL; and of course, boxer Muhammad Ali has a claim to being the most famous American Muslim, period. (Incidentally, Ahmad Rashad was a student of Rashad Khalifa.) In baseball, meanwhile, while the majority of players have come from a Christian background, there have been members of many other religious minorities, both practicing and nonpracticing, like Ryan Braun (Jewish); Bryce Harper (Mormon); and Khalil Greene (Baha’i). (For that matter, back in 2009, when he was dating Kate Hudson, Alex Rodriguez considered converting to Buddhism.) So why haven’t there been more Muslims in baseball?
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It is a certain treat to be able to watch baseball players not know what they’re doing. It’s not something you hope for all of the time, because then you’re just watching the Astros, but on occasion, it’s a little spice that can go a long way. A little bit of absurdity to season what might otherwise be a relatively unwatchable game. So often, we marvel at how these players are extraordinary at what they do. We watch them because we can’t be them. We appreciate, then, the moments at which they’re most like us.

The most popular and highly-anticipated example is the case of the position player taking the mound. Position players are trained to be position players and not pitchers, but sometimes they have to pitch, either because it’s a blowout or because extra innings won’t end. They’ve all, of course, pitched in the past, but they aren’t trained major leaguers, so they’re basically us + talent. Another, less-discussed example is the case of the relief pitcher batting. Relief pitchers are trained to be pitchers and not batters, but sometimes they bat, either because it’s a blowout or the situation is desperate. They’ve all, of course, batted in the past, but they aren’t trained major leaguers, so they’re basically us + talent.

It’s fun to watch position players pitch. It’s fun to watch relief pitchers bat. Wednesday night in St. Louis, in a game between the Dodgers and the Cardinals, fans witnessed them both. And they witnessed them both happen at the same time.

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The Philadelphia Phillies have given the sabermetric community a lot of ammunition over the last few years. The Ryan Howard contract! $52 million for Jonathan Papelbon! Delmon Young! Even off the field, the Phillies GM gives us comments like “I don’t care about walks, I care about production.” Picking on the Phillies recently has been pretty easy, and writers from this side of the baseball spectrum have been warning of the Phillies coming demise for several years.

Now that it’s here, the Phillies were even more roundly ridiculed for not acknowledging their place on baseball’s win curve, holding on to valuable trade chips at the deadline even as they get passed by the Marlins in run differential. Rather than turn Cliff Lee, Chase Utley, and Michael Young into younger, cheaper talent, the Phillies are soldiering on with an aging, expensive club that is nearly 20 games behind the Braves in the standings. And with last night’s news of an impending Chase Utley contract extension, they seem to be digging in their heels even more.

Chase Utley will be 35 next season. The last three years, he’s played 115, 103, and 83 games, and he’ll probably end up in the low 100s again this year, unless he gets hurt before the season ends and falls short of even that mark. The team with the 29th best run differential in the majors just signed up an injury prone second baseman for his age-35/36 seasons, but unlike most of the Phillies moves over the last few years, I actually like this move for Philadelphia, and commend Ruben Amaro for getting the deal done.

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

1. Carlos Martinez to Make First Major-League Start
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Carlos Martinez to Make First Major-League Start
Introduction
Right-handed St. Louis prospect Carlos Martinez, who’s split time this season as a starter in the minors and also as a member of the Cardinal bullpen, makes his first major-league start today (Thursday) at 8:15pm ET against the Los Angeles Nationals.

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Last year, Miguel Cabrera won the American League Triple Crown and the American League Most Valuable Player Award. You might’ve heard about that. This year, Miguel Cabrera has been even better. His wRC+ is up dozens of points. His WAR is almost even despite it still being the beginning of August. Offensively, Cabrera’s been having one of the very greatest seasons ever, helping to make up for Prince Fielder’s extended slump. Cabrera’s been the kind of good we take for granted — we eventually take all kinds of good for granted — but in those fleeting moments of clarity and appreciation, Cabrera knocks us on our asses. It’s absurd, basically, what Miguel Cabrera has done, and can do.

The in-contention Indians were dealt a difficult blow when Corey Kluber landed on the disabled list with a finger injury. Kluber’s a good pitcher, see, and in-contention teams need good pitchers, and the Indians had to turn to prospect Danny Salazar on Wednesday night. Wednesday, Salazar made his second big-league appearance and start, facing the Tigers for the first time. Meaning he was facing Miguel Cabrera for the first time. Interesting things happened.

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The author attended a Double-A Eastern League game on Tuesday between the Bowie Baysox (a Baltimore affiliate) and New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Toronto) in Manchester, NH. What follows is a brief examination of three Blue Jays prospects from same.

Marcus Stroman, RHP

After returning in May from a 50-game suspension for a banned stimulant, the right-handed Duke product Stroman has been excellent for New Hampshire, having recorded strikeout and walk rates of 29.9% and 6.8%, respectively, entering Tuesday’s contest. Those figures situate him third among Eastern League starters behind only Cleveland prospect Danny Salazar (since promoted) and the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard by SCOUT, itself essentially a regressed (and probably poorly calculated) form of kwERA.

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