Hey there everybody, and welcome to the first part of the year’s first edition of The Worst Of The Best. If you don’t know what this series is all about, here’s a link to the complete 2013 archive. As an alternative to reading through the archive, you might elect to not read through the archive. The idea, it turns out, is very easy to understand, and I explain it in plain English every time, and there’s never any carryover from one edition to the next. Some people have been asking if this series would return. Quite obviously, now, the answer is yes, but this’ll be running every month instead of ~every week. The public explanation is that, week to week, there isn’t enough diversity. The private explanation is that this is a lot of work. Thankfully, you guys are only privy to the public explanation. I don’t need to get stuck with a lazy rep.

Here, we’re going to look at the wildest pitches thrown in April, and thrown in March, too, since March only had a couple days of games. We’re going to look at the wildest pitches thrown so far. It’s based on PITCHf/x, so excluded are any and all pitches that didn’t generate PITCHf/x data (remember that there were two games in Australia). Sometimes that means I leave something out, but I’d rather make the occasional omission than watch every pitch of every game. The MLB Fan Cave sounds like a nightmare. I’ve defined the wildest pitches as the pitches ending up the furthest from the center of the strike zone. It works as a proxy and you’ll take what I give you. In detail, we’ll run through the top five. I’ll also present to you, quickly, the next five. Here now are five wild pitches, that were not among the five wildest pitches.

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Less than 96 hours after TMZ.com published a racist and hate-filled audio recording between Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his then-girlfriend V. Stiviano, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver suspended Sterling from any and all NBA activities for life; fined Sterling $2.5 million; and asked the other 29 NBA owners to force a sale of the Clippers. When asked at his press conference what authority he had to force Sterling to sell the team, Silver replied:

The owners have the authority subject to three quarters vote of the ownership group, of the partners, to remove him as an owner.

Silver didn’t go into specifics, and when asked questions about his authority to suspend Sterling for life and impose a $2.5 million fine, he replied:

I’ll let the lawyers lay out for you the specific provisions of our constitution. Let’s just leave it that we have the authority to act as I’ve recommended.

A few hours later, the NBA made its Constitution and By-Laws available to the media through the league’s media center website. Deadspin, among others, published the document in full and provided a link for those of us who aren’t NBA media members.

So let’s take a  look at Silver’s authority.

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There might not be two pitches as divisive as the splitter and the cutter. At least, there aren’t two pitches that are banned from development in multiple organizations across baseball like the splitter and the cutter. Dan Haren throws the splitter and the cutter.

That isn’t to say that he hasn’t had to be careful about throwing the two controversial pitches. Many of his adjustments over the course of his career have had to do with how he’s treated them. In fact, their story tells his story, in a way.

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By the time you read this, the calendar will have turned over to May, and a full month of baseball will be in the books. Charlie Blackmon is officially a thing, the Milwaukee Brewers have the best record in baseball, and the Arizona Diamondbacks’ season is essentially over – just like we all predicted.

It was a cold April throughout most of the country, and for that reason and others, the recent downward trend in run-scoring has continued. Before long, though, the summer heat will set in, and baseballs will begin flying out of ballparks more often, with pitching staffs bearing the brunt. Some teams will be better positioned to handle this than others. Let’s take a look at starting pitcher durability and relief pitcher usage for all clubs through Tuesday night’s games to get a feel for the clubs who are best and worst prepared for the upcoming summer of attrition. Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated and MLB.TV Free Game
Atlanta at Miami | 19:10 ET
Ervin Santana (27.2 IP, 57 xFIP-, 0.9 WAR) faces Henderson Alvarez (29.2 IP, 98 xFIP-, 0.4 WAR). The former has been a revelation thus far, having added what appears to be an entirely serviceable changeup to his repertoire — which transformation Jeff Sullivan documented in some depth on Monday. He faces a Miami lineup that has done quite a lot of “hitting” over the first two games of the series, producing single-game wOBAs of .440 and .488, respectively.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Atlanta Radio.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

The Fringe Five is a weekly column in which the author attempts to identify the most compelling rookie-eligible players not to have appeared on a top-100 prospect list. What follows is an inspection of two players who appeared frequently among the Five last year, but became ineligible this year owing to their growing prospect status.

Mookie Betts, 2B, Boston (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 21   Top-15: 4th   Top-100: 59th
Line: 102 PA, 9.8% BB, 7.8% K, .422/.471/.689 (.425 BABIP), 10/12 SB

Summary
Betts is capable of most everything on a baseball field — including to play multiple positions on it, probably.

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Pitch-pattern data can be interesting when you’re trying to spot trends or adjustments for scouting reports. Changes in pitch patterns can sometimes be revealing. Just the other day, we looked at Miguel Cabrera, and beginning in last year’s playoffs, pitchers started to challenge him with more fastballs over the plate. That trend continued into this April, as opposing teams picked up on the fact Cabrera wasn’t 100% after offseason surgery. With Cabrera not swinging like himself, pitchers often tried to blow him away. Now Cabrera’s getting back to normal, so pitchers, one figures, should soon return to their normal. Not that it’ll do them much good.

Pitch-pattern data can also be interesting and revealing when it doesn’t change. Wilin Rosario doesn’t see many fastballs, or strikes, or fastballs for strikes. What’s revealed is how people think of Wilin Rosario and his eye. The way Rosario gets pitched is perfectly justifiable, and this is an example of baseball finding its equilibrium. Yet there’s something curious I’ve noticed about Anthony Rendon. His name has come up when I’ve been researching other things.

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Ben and Sam talk to J.P. Breen about the Milwaukee Brewers, owners of the best record in baseball.

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