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

1. Most Improved Hitters So Far, Per Steamer
2. Today’s Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Most Improved Hitters So Far, Per Steamer
As the reader will know, we carry a tidy collection of projection systems here at the site — of which two now, Steamer and ZiPS, are updated daily with constantly changing rest-of-season and overall total projections. Together, the two systems provide important data for our new Standings tool. Another use is to see which players’ season performances to date have most altered their rest-of-season projections.

This week, in the Notes, we’ll be considering those hitters and pitchers whose projections have most improved. Below are the most improved hitters, according to Steamer — where “most improved” is defined as “greatest increase in wOBA projection.”

Note: any player either (a) with fewer than 150 projected rest-of-season plate appearances or (b) absent currently from a major-league roster has been omitted from consideration.

5. Josh Donaldson, 3B, Oakland
Steamer (Pre): 403 PA, .250/.315/.421 (.279 BABIP), .319 wOBA, 103 wRC+
Steamer (RoS): 306 PA, .257/.324/.432 (.286 BABIP), .329 wOBA, 107 wRC+
Notes: Most of Donaldson’s improvement so far seems to have come from an increase in projected BABIP. After entering the season with a .272 figure in 328 major-league plate appearances — and only a ca. .300 BABIP in the offense-heavy Pacific Coast League — he currently has a .336 so far this season through 159 plate appearances.

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On Saturday, the Washington Post published, well, I’m not sure what to call it exactly. It’s not an article. It’s part-interview, part-analysis, part-video, part-comparison. Whatever it is, it’s amazing. This is the kind of stuff that happens when you combine quality journalism with the advantages of technology. You owe it to yourself to check out this production by Adam Kilgore and friends. Even if you’re tired of the amount of coverage Bryce Harper gets, you should read this just for what it shows about what baseball journalism can be. And I, for one, am not at all tired of Bryce Harper.

The realization came to Rick Schu this spring as he sat in front of a screen, collecting baseball swings. All winter, Schu, the Washington Nationals’ hitting coordinator, had been watching “Baseball” by Ken Burns, a Christmas gift from his wife. He burned clips from the DVD and compiled classic swings — Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth. As he watched Ruth, Schu paused the video and asked himself a question: Didn’t Bryce Harper have a swing just like that?

Schu scanned through video and found film of Harper hitting. He arranged clips of Harper and Ruth side-by-side on the monitor and stopped at the moment each hitter’s bat connected with a pitch. In each still picture, he saw a stiff front leg, an uncoiling torso and a back foot lifting off the ground. “Wow,” he thought. “That’s identical.”

“They’ve got that exact same swing at contact point,” Schu said later.

Read the rest at The Washington Post.

Andrelton Simmons is solid with the glove. He makes all the plays he should. Andrelton Simmons is spectacular. You should see his arm. Really, though, Andrelton Simmons is spectacularly solid.

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This past weekend the New York Times ran an obituary for a 69-year-old former football player named George Sauer. Mr. Sauer was an accomplished wide receiver who made four Pro Bowls. In 1967, he led the American Football League in catches. In 1969, he played a prominent role as Joe Namath led the New York Jets to an improbable win in Super Bowl III.

He also hated his sport. Sauer considered professional football “a grotesque business” that “both glorifies and destroys bodies.” Lacking the passion to continue, he retired at age 27.

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Ben and Sam draft starting pitchers age 25 and under, then discuss whether there’s any significance to the fact that we haven’t seen a no-hitter yet this season.

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

1. Brief Review: Francisco Liriano’s First Start
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Brief Review: Francisco Liriano’s First Start
Introduction
Talented and also mercurial left-hander Francisco Liriano made his major-league season debut yesterday (Saturday) against the Mets in New York. What follows is a very brief review of same.

Liriano’s Results
Liriano had one of Saturday’s best starts in the league, posting the second-best single-game xFIP (1.58) among the day’s 30 starters and also third-highest single-game WAR (0.3). Here’s his complete line: 5.1 IP, 24 TBF, 9 K, 2 BB, 4 GB on 12 batted-balls (33.3%), .462 BABIP.

Liriano’s Pitches
As the PITCHf/x chart below (featuring pitch speed and horizontal movement) mostly reveals, Liriano threw his usual complement of pitches: a combination of four-seam and sinking fastballs, slider, and changeup.

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

1. Featured Game: San Diego at Tampa Bay, 18:10 ET
2. Other Notable Games (Including MLB.TV Free Game)
3. Today’s Complete Schedule

Featured Game: San Diego at Tampa Bay, 18:10 ET
Regarding This Game, Who’s Starting It for San Diego
Starting this game for San Diego — in fact, making his major-league debut in this game for San Diego — is 23-year-old right-hander Burch Smith.

Regarding Burch Smith, Who the Hell He Is
In terms of who the hell is Burch Smith, Burch Smith is one of the minor leagues’ most successful pitchers this season so far, having posted a 37:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio, for example, in just 31.1 innings (six starts) for Padres Double-A affiliate San Antonio — which performance (along with reports regarding his stuff) has earned him a place among the Fringe Five each of the last three weeks.

Regarding Burch Smith, Who the Hell He Also Is
Originally, Smith was a 14th-round pick by the Padres in 2011 out of the University of Oklahoma, at which university he had matriculated following two years at junior college. He pitched briefly in the Arizona League following the draft in 2011 (2.0 IP, 4:1 K:BB) and then in the High-A California League last season (128.2 IP, 137:27 K:BB).

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Hello friends, and welcome to the second part of the fifth edition of The Worst Of The Best. Apparently this is how I start these things now. The last edition of this was posted on April 26, and here’s a link to that, in case you want to know what you’re in for, before you’re actually in for it. The idea is to do these on a weekly basis, but there were no posts that went up last Friday. Why was that? None of your business! But to make up for the hiatus, this post will cover the last two weeks of baseball action, as was the case with the earlier post chronicling the wildest pitches.

So we’re looking at the top five wildest swings from April 26 through May 9, and by “wildest swings” I mean the swings at pitches furthest from the center of the strike zone. This always takes a lot more time to research than the wildest pitches post, because I have to exclude checked swings for this, and checked swings go in the PITCHf/x e-books as regular swings. Dear PITCHf/x: you might consider taking note of checked swings, versus full swings? Partial checked swings, versus checked swings that were still ruled strikes? It wouldn’t help many people, but it wouldn’t help no one. Anyway, here’s a post, with .gifs. I hope you like it, because that’s the whole point.

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Hello everybody, and, after a one-week hiatus, welcome to the first part of the fifth edition of The Worst Of The Best. Here is the first part of the fourth edition, from April 26. When we left off, I noted that I’d be out of town on the following Friday, and that I hadn’t yet decided whether the next edition of this would cover one week or two weeks. I decided this morning to go with two weeks, so that we don’t miss anything extraordinary from the time I was away. While that means we don’t get to fully explore the one week that just was, this way we’re sure to cover the most extreme pitches and, later, swings, and I care more about chronicling the most extreme than the not-quite-most extreme. That is a horribly-written sentence, but maybe 10% of this post’s audience are reading these introductory words.

So, the window considered: April 26 through May 9. We’re looking at the top five wildest pitches, as determined by distance from the center of the strike zone (at the front of the plate). It’s all based on the spectacular and imperfect PITCHf/x system, and if this is your first visit, prepare for .gifs, for so many .gifs. Personally I’m of the opinion that the Internet is presently experiencing .gif over-saturation, and there’s going to need to be an adjustment, but I don’t know any other way to present this material. If you’re wondering about pitches that just missed the cutoff, Zach McAllister came in sixth with a pitch thrown to Josh Donaldson on May 7. Phillippe Aumont came in seventh with a pitch thrown to Hunter Pence on May 8. But fret not: this isn’t the last you’ve heard of Phillippe Aumont, today. Onward and…upward? Downward? Onward.

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Last night, the Mets won 3-2 over the Pirates on three runs deserving the “manufactured” classification. Every run required a baserunner to take an extra base. John Buck scored on a sacrifice fly in the third inning after he went first-to-third on a single. Andrew Brown scored from first on a double in the seventh inning, and Marlon Byrd scored the game-winner on a relatively shallow single to center field by Mike Baxter.

Don’t be surprised. The Mets now lead MLB in runs added from baserunning at 5.6, just over the Red Sox at 5.4, and they’ve done it despite stealing just 13 bases, 24th in the league. How? They don’t make outs, and they take nearly every base possible when the ball is put in play.

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