Ben and Sam discuss Jack Zduriencik and the future of the Mariners, then talk about CC Sabathia’s dismaying season.
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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
A Version of Roy Halladay to Return Today
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this weekend post is to establish, for the benefit of his employers, the author’s commitment to producing a great quantity of content if not necessarily a superior quality of it.
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey Face-à-Face
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to alert the bespectacled readership to how very talented Detroit right-hander Max Scherzer faces very talented New York (Nationals) right-hander Matt Harvey this (Saturday) afternoon at 4:05pm ET in Queens, New York — a rencontre of such significance that one must employ French words to describe it.
Episode 374
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. He answers questions submitted by the vulgar and teeming masses in this Question Time edition of FanGraphs Audio.
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 1 hr 7 min play time.)
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Hey there everybody, and welcome to the second part of this edition of the series I wish I didn’t schedule for Fridays, when working Americans are supposed to be able to mentally check out in the early afternoon. I remember, at my old biotech, when Friday rolled around, the workday was basically over by lunch time. Now, not only do I work a full Friday — by the time this post goes up, much of the audience has already mentally and/or physically begun the weekend. One thing I could do is just not work on these things very hard, but I think I’m at the point at which I’m addicted to writing underneath images. I don’t know what I’m going to do in November. Tremble a lot, probably. Here’s a link to the series archive, to change the subject.
Wild swings are what we have, at breaking balls intended to hopefully generate wild swings. This edition comes with five wild swings and a bonus non-swing that still makes it into the post for reasons you might or might not be able to guess. Basically everything is something you might or might not be able to guess. That covers just about all the options. Today’s research excluded a bunch of check-swing strikes, from players like Matt Wieters, Ryan Zimmerman, Mike Moustakas, and Chris Davis. Players very much like them. Players so much like them, in fact, they are them. We’ll get going now to the five wild swings and the bonus. The sooner we all start, the sooner we’re all done.
Hey there everybody, and welcome to the first part of another edition of The Worst Of The Best. You’ll see in the headline it’s written as “The Worst of the Best” — with fewer capital letters — in accordance with our editorial policies, but I like capital letters because they make me feel important, so the first sentence of this post is my own form of stubborn protest. Now, this is obviously a departure from the news of the day. Yesterday, Ryan Braun released a statement of apology, and everywhere today you can find somebody’s hot takes. The consensus: the apology was a good step, but not enough. Not enough to make up for cheating and lying and accusatory behavior. A written, prepared apology was not enough to make up for that. That is the thesis of just about every article on the matter I’ve seen. So, yeah, I’m glad this is a departure from the news of the day, because the news of the day is stupid.
In this departure, we look at the wildest pitches thrown between August 16 and August 22. Here’s an archive of the whole series, if you feel like throwing your day away or destroying your processor. It’s PITCHf/x and simple math and identifying locations furthest from the center of the strike zone. Some pitches just missing our top five: Andy Pettitte to David Ortiz on August 16, Taylor Jordan to Freddie Freeman on August 16, and Rubby De La Rosa to Robinson Cano on August 18. The pitches that didn’t miss our top five are the top five, presented below. I should warn you: this is a particularly confusing week. I had some trouble with this, and Nationals and Braves fans can probably guess why. The rest of you will just have to wait, a few seconds.
It is tough to criticize the Texas Rangers’ decisions. If the current standings hold up, they will win the American League Westfor the third time in four years. Even if Oakland catches up, the Rangers will still probably make the playoffs for the fourth season in a row. They went to the World Series in 2010 and 2011. No team has a spotless record when it comes to personnel decisions either at the time or in hindsight. Every team enjoys some good luck and suffers some bad luck. These days, no team has a lineup full of superstars or even above-average players. Most teams have to get by with at least one or two mediocre players, usually to save money so that it can be spent elsewhere.
Thus, it is not completely strange that Rangers are making do with Mitch Moreland as their primary first baseman once again. Moreland got off to a hot start this season, but came back to earth with a current seasonal line of .244/.306/.446 (98 wRC+). He is is even starting to lose playing time in a semi-platoon with journeyman Jeff Baker. Moreland was only a bit better last season, which he finished with a 105 wRC+ after splitting first base duties with Michael Young and Mike Napoli. Moreland is pretty much a league average bat, which does not cut it as a first baseman, even if it does not kill the Rangers given their other strengths. As written above, few teams are without a weak spot on the diamond.
Nonetheless, the Rangers would obviously like to be better at first base. From that perspective, it is interesting to see the talented first baseman that came up with Texas over the last decade or so and have since moved on.
Today, the Rays acquired David DeJesus from the Nationals a few days after Washington got him from the Cubs. The cost of both acquisitions was either a minor prospect or cash, as DeJesus is being moved essentially as a cost savings maneuver. He wasn’t in big demand at the trade deadline, and isn’t seen as a major acquisition.
A few weeks ago, the Rangers acquired Alex Rios from the White Sox, after this transaction was rumored for weeks heading up to the trade deadline. The Rangers received a lot of praise for getting a deal done in the wake of Nelson Cruz’s suspension, with several people noting that the Rangers got both “the best hitter” (Rios) and “the best pitcher” (Matt Garza) available this summer.
Perception is a funny thing. Here’s David DeJesus and Alex Rios, season to date.
Yesterday, I posed a thought experiment that had recently been posed to me: if Mike Trout were to become a free agent but declare that he would only sign a one year contract, how much would you offer him for the 2014 season alone? 2,800 people submitted answers — well, a little north of 2,800 now, but I had to dump the data into Excel at some point — and the results are pretty interesting. Let’s get right to them.
| 11:47 |
: I’m all set up on the back deck of my house so we’ll get started in about 10-15 minutes…
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| 11:55 |
Who should the Mariners build around: Smoak or Montero? |
| 11:56 |
: Of those two players, I’d lean more towards Smoak but I’m not sure if either player is a guy you’d want to build your club around… I’d wait and see if Franklin or Miller can be that guy… or some dude named Zunino, when he’s healthy.
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| 11:56 |
What do you think of Zimmer, Syndergaard, and Stephenson? Is there a standout of the pack? |
| 11:57 |
: All 3 are pretty impressive… I ranked all three of them in July: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fangraphs-2013-mid-season-top-50-prospects/
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| 11:58 |
Do you think Avisail Garcia will live up to the “Little Miggy” nickname? Thanks. |
