Ben and Sam answer the most listener emails they’ve ever answered.
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With the lack of high quality pitchers on the trade block, the Brewers have made it known that Yovani Gallardo could be available for the right offer. Since Gallardo is only 27-years-old and under team control through 2015, he has the potential to bring back a more significant piece to help the Brewers rebuild than the rent-a-veteran types that other clubs are shopping. However, there’s one small problem; Gallardo is doing his best to scare off any clubs who might have seen him as an answer to their rotation problems.
In his last two starts, Gallardo has allowed 13 runs while pitching only seven innings, and those clunkers came against the Cubs and Nationals, neither of whom are known for their ferocious offensive attacks. It’s not wise to decide that a player is not useful based on a couple of recent poor performances, but Gallardo has been trending the wrong way for a while now.
Entering play yesterday, there were four catchers among the top 30 position players in WAR. Three of them should come as no surprise: Buster Posey, Joe Mauer and Yadier Molina. The fourth might be a bit of a surprise, though. Well, at least it might be if you hadn’t read the title of this article. Which, I’m guessing you did. That’s right, it’s Russell Martin.
And the trade season is officially here. We have our first significant trade of the year on July 2nd, and the timing of this move is not a coincidence.
First, the details, per Keith Law.
Orioles acquire Scott Feldman and Tony Clevenger from the Cubs for Jake Arrietta, Pedro Strop, and int'l bonus slots.
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) July 2, 2013
For the record, he meant Steve Clevenger, but he’s a throw-in in this deal, and it’s not like Baltimore is acquiring him to unseat Matt Wieters or anything. This deal is basically Feldman for two pitchers and, in a first for MLB, pool allocation money that will allow the Cubs to be more aggressive in international free agency. We’ll get to that part of the trade in a second. First, let’s start with what the Orioles are getting in Scott Feldman.
Episode 356
Outfielder and recent Vanderbilt alumnus Connor Harrell was the Detroit Tigers’ seventh-round pick in the most recent amateur draft. He’s also the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 12 min play time.)
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New York City hosts this year’s All-Star festivities, just five years after hosting the 2008 summer classic. The Mets are in charge this year, with the All-Star Game, Home Run Derby, Futures Game and All-
Everything, it seems, is more expensive in New York City — and tickets for the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby are no exception. Tickets for this year’s game range from $195 to $715, according to Major League Baseball. In 2008, the range was $150 to $725. That’s a nearly 33% increase for the least expensive ticket, with a slight decrease at the upper end. By comparison, ticket prices for last year’s All-Star Game in Kansas City ranged from $125 to $400.
The economy’s certainly picked up since 2008, which may have contributed to the ticket price increase. There’s also the issue of supply and demand. Yankee Stadium could fit more than 56,000 fans. CitiField’s capacity, including standing room only, is only 45,000. Not every seat in the ballpark is for sale, either. MLB uses quite a few seats for TV and corporate sponsors and players get seats for their friends and family. Read the rest of this entry »
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: Hello, you all!
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: I just had a lovely time-consuming error regarding coveritlive console something something!
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| 9:04 |
: I don’t have a very good memory of errors! Let’s chat about baseball now for a while.
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Would you rather have Doug Fister or Matt Moore ROS? Is it close? |
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: Fister and it isn’t close because I don’t and can’t trust Matt Moore
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| 9:05 |
: Maybe Moore is making some strides, I haven’t checked lately, but his control problems freak me out
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Imagine, for a second, that Major League Baseball had an automated strike zone, and there weren’t any bugs in the system. Imagine that the zone were specifically defined, changing consistently for each hitter, such that there couldn’t ever be any dispute. The zone would be perfect, and any given pitch would be either a definite strike or a definite ball. What you have imagined doesn’t exist. Instead, we have human brains doing everything, and sometimes human brains fall for magic tricks and infomercials. Umpires make mistakes, and because of that, any pitch could conceivably be called either way. There’s always some probability, however small, that a bad pitch might be called a strike, or that a good pitch might be called a ball. This is the way it is, and for now the rate of mistakes is low enough that we haven’t had a bloody revolt.
Because there are mistakes, there is a spectrum of mistakes, with some being the most understandable and some being the most wrong. The most wrong strike-zone call would be a call with the greatest difference between the actual call and what the call should’ve been. Imagine a fastball down the middle. If it’s taken, and called a ball, that would be a big mistake on the umpire’s part. With all this in mind, the month of June is over, so I thought we’d take a look at the month’s most wrong ball call. In part out of curiosity; in part to see what we can learn. Get ready for a little Edwin Jackson.
Ben and Sam discuss whether hardcore quantitative analysts make good GM material, then estimate the likelihood that under-30 players will make the Hall of Fame.
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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. The Corey Kluber Society Remains Undaunted
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
The Corey Kluber Society Remains Undaunted
The Purpose of This Post
The purpose of this post is to announce both (a) a meeting tonight (Tuesday) of the Corey Kluber Society, at 8:10pm ET, and also (b) that the members of the aforementioned Society remain undaunted by Kluber’s last two starts, despite how he’s allowed 10 runs in 10.1 innings.
