For me, there’s been something about seeing the first fruits of the Houston Astros’ years-long rebuilding project that really gets the imagination going. This is a team that is unquestionably built for the vague future that is even more unquestionably winning a lot in the concrete now. Let’s forget, for the length of this article, that the 2015 major-league team — alternately composed of beefy sluggers and finesse worm-burner-inducers — is favored by our projections to win the American League West and is tied for the seventh-best odds to win this year’s World Series. Let’s focus, for now, on the Astros’ draft picks in next week’s draft.

And I don’t mean the specific prospects that the Astros may or may not pick, a subject that has already been discussed in impressive depth by Kiley McDaniel. I mean the team’s early draft slots: 2, 5, 37, 46. The Astros are rich, and they stand to get much richer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve reached that nice round number of two months after Opening Day, and as such, we can now recall fondly some of the highlights of those first two frames of the season. What sort of highlights, you may ask? Usually, they’re seen as the most popular type: dingers, big flies, what-have-yous. Today, just as we did after the first two weeks of the season, and just as August did a few times last season, we’re going to look at the hardest-hit, longest, shortest, and most extreme home runs of the year so far.

All data comes from our friends at HitTrackerOnline and Baseball Savant. Following a canvass of commenters on the previous article, there are now a few more categories for us to look at, especially related to pitch location; may we all rejoice in the communal desire to see a gross number of home runs. Onto the results!

Hardest-Hit Home Run — Josh Donaldson, 4/23

In theory, there are a great number of possible answers to the question “what happens when you hang a belt-high change up to Josh Donaldson?”, but in practice, there is often only one. This particular change up was adjudged by our computer overlords to leave the hand of the pitcher at a speed of 84.6 mph, while leaving the bat moments later at a speed of 120.6 mph. Fortunately for the safety of the fans, Donaldson decided to choose the second deck of the facade at the Rogers Centre to bear the brunt of the ensuing impact.
Read the rest of this entry »

On July 4th, you’re likely going to be pressured into exuding every bit of patriotism you can muster, and perhaps you’ll spend the evening watching things explode in the sky. On July 5th, we’d like to offer those of you in the Washington D.C. area a chance to celebrate America in a different way; talking baseball and drinking beer.

On that Sunday evening, from 6 pm to 9 pm, we’re hosting a gathering at The RFD Bar. The event will be a mix of hanging out, along with a couple of formal Q&As, including:

General baseball discussion with SiriusXM’s Mike Ferrin, BrooksBaseball founder Dan Brooks, and myself.

Washington Nationals discussion with members of their front office.

The cost of the event is just $10, and that includes a ticket for one free drink at the bar. The private room we’ve reserved can comfortably hold roughly 100 people, so I’d strongly suggest buying your tickets sooner than later, as the odds of a sellout are pretty high. We’ve always enjoyed doing these events, and look forward to hanging out with all of you guys in a month’s time.

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
St. Louis at Los Angeles NL | 22:10 ET
Martinez (60.1 IP, 87 xFIP-) vs. Anderson (55.1 IP, 89 xFIP-)
Between 2013 and -14, St. Louis right-hander Carlos Martinez produced a 21.2% strikeout rate over 117.2 innings, the majority of the latter in a relief capacity. Over 60.1 innings this season, Martinez has recorded a 25.4% strikeout rate — which is to say, a mark about four points better than his career figure — while working almost exclusively in a starting capacity. This is unusual. As a rule, the same pitcher — because he’s able to throw harder and is likely to face a greater percentage of same-handed batters — the same pitcher will produce better strikeout numbers as a reliever than as a starter. To the extent that Martinez has exhibited the precise opposite trend, one is compelled to entertain the possibility that the rules don’t apply to Carlos Martinez. Or that, at least, one of the universe’s nearly infinite and oppressive rules doesn’t apply to him.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a lot going on with the Cleveland Indians right now. They’re not playing to expectations, but the expectations remain. The team has the highest projected rest-of-season win percentage, and our playoff odds have them just a hair underneath the Kansas City Royals, who have played far better than Cleveland this year.

The Indians haven’t really played that poorly, though. On a component level, they’re doing a lot of things correctly. Their offense and baserunning are top notch, as is their starting rotation. For all the fits Cody Allen gave the team at the season’s start, their reliever FIP- is middle of the pack. Their defense has been a problem, though. By Def, they rank 28th; they are 26th by UZR/150 and 25th by DRS. As it is pondered how to fix the Indians’ defense, attention obviously turns to the farm system, where top prospect Francisco Lindor currently resides. As one with flashy leather tools on his tool belt, it would seem natural that Lindor would be summoned to help the cause — especially when the incumbent shortstop Jose Ramirez isn’t hitting all that well. Is that fair? Are the Indians being too conservative with Lindor?

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam talk to Aaron Gleeman about the confounding, first-place Minnesota Twins.

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

David Ortiz is hitting — that is, to the extent he has stood in the batters box with a bat and hit a pitched ball and run towards first base. He is hitting, that is, in that he is and has been a hitter in the technical sense of the term. He is not hitting in that he is not hitting. That is to say, he is not hitting in the David Ortiz sense, the sense where he crushes line drives and smacks majestic home runs. David Ortiz, it should be noted, is 39 years old. The implication is that David Ortiz is, like all of us, getting older — and also like all of us, but only relevant to him, his baseball skills are eroding. When a baseball player reaches Ortiz’s age, the end is coming fast; it’s just a question of when. Based on the way Ortiz’s first two months have gone, maybe that when is now.

It was only last season Ortiz hit .263/.355/.517. That’s a wRC+ of 135. Quite good! Ortiz spent this May hitting .214/.287/.337, however, and it’s not as thought he was much better in April either. His combined slash line this season is .224/.308/.379. With his age and skill set, that’s bound to engender talks of his retirement. Baseball death, often like real death I suppose, can arrive quickly. But Ortiz has had tough starts to seasons in the past and gone on to excellence. Some have postulated that, instead of age, the problem is mechanical issues with Ortiz’s swing that are the true culprit. It is possible Ortiz’s bad start is entirely age related and this is who he is now, i.e. someone whose time has gone. It’s also possible that his lousy production is entirely the fault of faulty swing mechanics. It’s also possible that it’s some combination of both.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two months ago, almost on the nose, the Padres concluded their offseason by picking up Craig Kimbrel. It was a pretty big move between the Padres and the Braves, but the players of real consequence were Kimbrel and Matt Wisler. Of what was left, there were either long-shots or money exchanges. Onto the Padres, the Braves dumped Melvin Upton. Onto the Braves, the Padres dumped Carlos Quentin and Cameron Maybin. This was about financials, more than talent. The teams wanted rid of those contracts.

In a way, Upton and Maybin sort of canceled out. Both were frustrating center fielders with ceilings higher than their recent performances. Upton needed to get away from Atlanta. Maybin needed to get away from San Diego. We’ll see what Upton is able to do, when he’s back and healthy. But Maybin was slotted in immediately as a regular. And while I intend this more as a fun fact than as a cheap shot, I’ll note that, at the moment, Maybin has a higher WAR than Wil Myers, and a higher WAR than Matt Kemp. He’s hitting better than he ever has before, and now, after rolling the dice, it looks like the Braves might have a real center fielder for a couple of years.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a couple years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above both (a) absent from the most current iteration of Kiley McDaniel’s top-200 prospect list and (b) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing on any of McDaniel’s updated prospect lists or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

Read the rest of this entry »