Art Kusnyer has had a long and fulfilling life in baseball. Currently on the coaching staff of the Chicago White Sox, the 68-year-old has been around the game since being drafted out of Kent State University in 1966. A big-league catcher for parts of six seasons, Kusnyer caught Nolan Ryan’s second no-hitter on July 15, 1973.

A journeyman who spent much of his career in the minors, Kusyner was a member of the 1974 Sacramento Solons. It was no ordinary season. His 17 home runs were eighth most on the team as the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate banged out 305 home runs in 144 games.

“We played at Hughes Field, which was a football field,” explained Kusnyer. “It was used for baseball for a few years, but it just wasn’t compatible. It was 230 feet down the left field line and 315 down the right field line. Center field was maybe 385-390. In left field they had this great big net – this 30-foot net you had to hit it over – but at 230 feet, guys would pop balls up and they’d go out. Bill McNulty, who ended up going to play in Japan, hit 55 home runs for us. Gorman Thomas hit 54. Sixto Lezcano hit [34]. Tommy Bianco hit close to 30 home runs. He went to the big leagues and his claim to fame is pinch-hitting for Henry Aaron.

“I was there two years and they were the worst I ever had as a catcher. Not only did we keep home and road ERAs for our pitchers, you couldn’t see for the first five innings, because the sun was so bad. I’d have balls clanking off of me and hitters would sometimes step out of the box when the pitcher released the ball, because they couldn’t see it. After the fifth inning, when the sun went down, that’s when the fireworks started. Balls would be flying all over the place. In one game, the Tacoma Twins hit something like nine home runs in the ninth inning to beat us.”

Nolan Ryan gave up 324 home runs [including playoff games] on his way to the Hall of Fame. It goes without saying hitters didn’t see the ball very well off of him. The all-time leader in strikeouts tossed seven no-hitters. Kusyner remembers No. 2 like it was yesterday.

“It was at Tiger Stadium and he had 17 strikeouts, the most in any no-hitter,” said Kusnyer. “Usually he just beat the shit out of you, because he had the hard curveball and you’d be blocking balls. That particular day he was right on. You know how the infield grass is cut out in front, in a half circle? When the ball got just a little bit past that, it would explode. It would just take off. I remember when he struck out Norm Cash early in the game. When Cash was walking back to the bench, one of his teammates asked him, ‘How is he throwing?’ Cash said, ‘Don’t go up there.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, purple for NotGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community.

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 Game
Washington at Philadelphia | 19:10 ET
Stephen Strasburg (119.1 IP, 68 xFIP-, 2.7 WAR) faces Cole Hamels (100.1 IP, 89 xFIP-, 1.9 WAR). The latter has prevented runs at a more characteristic rate over his late two appearances. After entering his July 1st start with a 2.63 xFIP and 3.70 ERA, Strasburg has conceded only three earned (and overall) runs over his last 14.2 innings — which is to say, a mark more similar to the latter and not the former of the aforementioned figures.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Washington Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday was a rough day for baseball on the injury front. For Cincinnati, Brandon Phillips was diagnosed with a thumb injury that’ll knock him out a month and a half. For New York, Masahiro Tanaka was diagnosed with an elbow injury that’ll knock him out at least a month and a half. And for St. Louis, Yadier Molina was diagnosed with a thumb injury that’ll knock him out for 8 to 12 weeks. All of these teams, of course, are trying to make the playoffs, and all of these players, of course, are important.

The commonality: significant injuries. Upon deeper investigation, though, the injuries have different meanings. The Reds should be able to survive without Phillips, who’s no longer a star. The Yankees could be devastated without Tanaka, who’s all but irreplaceable and who might still eventually need Tommy John surgery. And the Cardinals should be able to survive without Molina, even though he is still a star, unlike Phillips. Other than Adam Wainwright, Molina’s the most valuable player on that ballclub, but even still, the Cardinals aren’t in a terrible situation.

Read the rest on FoxSports.com.

This is a trade-deadline season defined by available pitching. We’ve already seen a handful of arms on the move, with more still to get dealt, and for the teams who’ve been looking for bats, there’s not nearly the same kind of market. But one player out there who’s gotten a little attention is Marlon Byrd, who’s been a good veteran hitter on a bad team. There’s little reason for the Phillies to keep Byrd on the roster through July, and while, a year ago, the Pirates took a bit of a risk in acquiring the bounceback outfielder, now there’s every reason to believe the version of Marlon Byrd that suddenly came into existence in 2013 is the version of Marlon Byrd that there is.

The changes, see, have only been sustained through this season’s first three months. Byrd still strikes out more than he used to, but he also hits for more power than he used to, and he’s right on the edge of being an all-or-nothing slugger. When I was first getting into sabermetrics, I learned about the concept of old-player skills, and I was told that players near the end of the line will often sell out for dingers and fly balls. Based just on the numbers, Byrd has indeed sold out for dingers and fly balls, but in his case, this seems to be less about his approach and more about the swing he modified a year and a half ago. And that makes it seem like he has a little more left in the tank.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 461
Ben Badler (@BenBadler) writes for Baseball America, for which publication he provides all manner of prospect-related coverage, with a decided emphasis on the international market. He’s also the guest on this 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 37 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Next Monday, we’re kicking off one of the most popular things we do around here: the Trade Value series. It’s been an annual tradition for going on 10 years now, and I find it a nice distraction from the fact that the All-Star break fails to give us any interesting baseball to talk about. Plus, it gives you guys all kinds of ammunition to prove that I am, in fact, an idiot.

To that end, I’d like to look back at last year’s list, and make some comments about what we might have learned over the last calendar year. List first, then comments. Read the rest of this entry »

There were a lot of good pitchers in the American League last year. Jose Quintana was one of them. There are a lot of good pitchers in the American League this year. Jose Quintana is one of them. You may not have noticed until recently, as he’s been on a very nice run of late, which was punctuated by five perfect innings to start yesterday’s game at Fenway Park.

Quintana is an easy guy to ignore. He isn’t especially young. This is his age-25 season, and he’s in the midst of his third big-league season, and in his first season he wasn’t called up until early May. That’s pretty good, particularly for a pitcher, but it certainly isn’t remarkable. There are plenty of pitchers who have more than two full seasons under their belt by the time they get to their age-25 season.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

They say all games are created equally, and that each outing in a long season is just one of 162 games. That’s certainly true, from a mathematical perspective – 90 wins is 90 wins, regardless of how a team gets there.

From a practical perspective, however, not all games are equal. While the primacy effect may make it seem like it’s the games late in the season, within a tight race, that “matter more,” the argument can be made that it’s the games earlier in the year that can shape a team’s endpoint the most. In particular, success in the games ahead of the July 31 trade deadline, when looked at together, is paramount.

The American League East is a great example of this. With five teams projected to perform similarly before the season, the spread in the division so far is perhaps wider than most anticipated, with 9.5 games separating first and last. The team quality evaluation hasn’t changed all that much, however, with each team projected to win between 35 and 37 games (.480-.521) the rest of the way. The teams who have performed well early are in the driver’s seat for a playoff push, even though they don’t necessarily project as better than the others the rest of the way.

This is important not just for building an edge within the division – it’s made three teams buyers and two teams sellers ahead of the deadline.
Read the rest of this entry »