Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across 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, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
| 7:38 |
:
In which sport that plays a decent number of games do you think it’s the hardest to win 10+ games in a row?
MLB (46.5% | 68 votes)
NBA (9.5% | 14 votes)
NHL (26.7% | 39 votes)
Pro soccer (MLS/EPL/etc.) (17.1% | 25 votes)
Total Votes: 146
|
| 7:40 |
:
Which of Dave Cameron’s top 10 free agents would you *least* like your team to sign?
Yu Darvish (1.8% | 3 votes)
J.D. Martinez (1.2% | 2 votes)
Jake Arrieta (17.1% | 28 votes)
Carlos Santana (3.6% | 6 votes)
Eric Hosmer (45.3% | 74 votes)
Lorenzo Cain (4.9% | 8 votes)
Wade Davis (3.0% | 5 votes)
Mike Moustakas (10.4% | 17 votes)
Zack Cozart (11.0% | 18 votes)
Alex Cobb (1.2% | 2 votes)
Total Votes: 163
|
| 4:29 |
:
Which of Paul’s 10 players he’s excited to watch are *you* most excited to watch in 2018?
Rafael Devers (26.5% | 42 votes)
Gio Gonzalez (1.2% | 2 votes)
Dellin Betances (12.0% | 19 votes)
Nomar Mazara (10.7% | 17 votes)
Jon Gray (12.0% | 19 votes)
Jose Berrios (18.9% | 30 votes)
Dee Gordon (1.8% | 3 votes)
Mike Zunino (5.0% | 8 votes)
Lorenzo Cain (3.1% | 5 votes)
David Wright (8.2% | 13 votes)
Total Votes: 158
|
| 9:02 |
: Hi everybody!
|
| 9:03 |
: Being a Red Sox fan, I can’t say I’m too upset with this, but it seems like Judge is being slighted in the MVP race, no? He leads Altuve in most relevant categories (both old fashioned and sabermetric) and yet most writers are acting like Altuve is a no doubter. What say you?
|
| 9:04 |
: I don’t think either of them are no doubters, but I would agree that the media narrative has landed on Altuve’s side. We’ll see Thursday I guess. I honestly don’t care either way.
|
We’re currently in the midst of a lull in the baseball calendar. The offseason has officially arrived and yet the Hot Stove hasn’t really been lit yet. I suppose I could get excited for Awards season, but the painfully slow roll out and the heated arguments wear me down fairly quickly.
So, instead, I try to make my own baseball entertainment. For me, one exercise is simply to look over the league and attempt to identify the players about whom I’m most excited for next season. Not superstars, necessarily: everyone is always excited to watch the game’s brightest lights. And not prospects who haven’t yet reached the Show, either. I’m not really qualified to talk about those players in a meaningful way, so I’ll leave those players to Eric (and Chris) and all the scouts out there.
Outside of those groups, though, there are still hundreds of players from which to choose. I’ll be excited to watch more than these 10, of course, but in surveying the league, these are ones who caught my eye. Note that this isn’t in any particular order. I’m equally excited about all 10. Perhaps you’ll agree with me, perhaps not. Feel free to conduct your own exercise and let me know who your 10 players are in the comments.
The new Red Sox third baseman enjoyed a meteoric debut month, swatting his way to a 224 wRC+ in his July call-up. That covered just 27 plate appearances, though, and as we moved into August and September, he cooled off significantly. He hit safely from his second game (July 26) through his eighth game (August 4). At that point, he was hitting .389/.463/.694, for a 205 wRC+. From August 5 through the end of the regular season, though, he hit .263/.312/.441, for a 92 wRC+. Doom and gloom, right? Not entirely, no, because in Boston’s abbreviated playoff run, he was one of the few bright spots, slashing .364/.429/.909. He slugged two homers — one off of Francisco Liriano and one off of Ken Giles. The latter was of the inside-the-park variety, but it was impressive nonetheless:
So, it’s hard to know what to expect from young Devers. Andrew Benintendi was similarly hyped coming into last campaign and was decidedly mediocre for large swaths of the season. Will that be Devers’ fate too? And what of his fielding? He made seven throwing errors and seven fielding errors in his short time in Boston. If the Red Sox acquire a legit first baseman this winter (or a legit DH and move Hanley Ramirez to first) and it turns out that Devers can’t hack at it at third, the Red Sox will have a conundrum to solve.
Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across 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, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
| 6:21 |
:
Do you think the Hall of Fame should waive the fifth year of Roy Halladay’s waiting period and put him on the ballot this year instead of next year?
Yes (35.8% | 95 votes)
No (33.2% | 88 votes)
I’d like to say yes, but with the ballot so crowded I’m afraid he might crowd out someone deserving. (22.6% | 60 votes)
I can’t decide (8.3% | 22 votes)
Total Votes: 265
|
| 9:01 |
: Hi everybody.
|
| 9:02 |
: I wonder what we’re going to be talking about…sigh…
|
| 9:02 |
: RIP Roy Halladay.You will be remembered.
|
| 9:02 |
: RIP Roy Halladay
|
| 9:02 |
: Just dug my Doctober shirt out from under my bed and put it in the wash so that I can wear it out this weekend. If you see me at the UT game or around Austin please say hello. RIP
|
Heading into the 2017 campaign, a lot was expected of Jackie Bradley Jr. In 2016, he’d shown that his late-season breakout the previous year was no fluke. He recorded five wins, bashed a career-best 26 homers, and earned a place on the All-Star team for the first time. He was excellent on the defensive side of the ball, as well. There was sufficient reason to think he’d reach a new level.
Unfortunately, though, this season didn’t quite go as planned. If his career seemed to be trending up, the 2017 campaign changed that impression. It was an unexpected chapter in what has become a pretty strange career up to this point.
Let’s start with Bradley’s power output. In 2015, when then-interim manager Torey Lovullo finally gave Bradley a shot at regular playing time, he started pounding the ball with authority. For the 2015 season as a whole, he posted a .249 ISO. From his July 29 call-up to the end of the season, his ISO was .272. No one expected him to carry that over for a full season in 2016 — only 24 players have ever posted a .270 ISO for a whole season while manning center field, and the list of players who have done it more than one season is perilously short, including only Carlos Beltran, Joe DiMaggio, Jim Edmonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Gorman Thomas, Mike Trout, and Hack Wilson. Ten guys.
Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across 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, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
| 5:07 |
:
Who will win tonight’s game?
Astros (24.5% | 74 votes)
Dodgers (64.9% | 196 votes)
I can’t decide! (10.5% | 32 votes)
Total Votes: 302
|
| 5:07 |
:
In your opinion, which game has been the best so far?
Game 1 (5.8% | 17 votes)
Game 2 (81.0% | 236 votes)
Game 3 (5.1% | 15 votes)
Game 4 (4.1% | 12 votes)
I can’t decide! (3.7% | 11 votes)
Total Votes: 291
|
| 5:09 |
:
Which game will end up with the highest avg. SP Game Score v. 2.0 (GSv2)?
Current leader Game 4 – 69.8 (Morton 76.8, Wood 62.8) (32.7% | 81 votes)
Tonight (Kershaw-Keuchel) (42.5% | 105 votes)
Game 6 (Verlander-TBD/Hill) (12.5% | 31 votes)
Game 7 (TBD-TBD) (1.6% | 4 votes)
I can’t decide! (10.5% | 26 votes)
Total Votes: 247
|
| 7:37 |
:
How many minutes after 8 pm will tonight’s game start?
Zero – it’ll start right on time! (4.8% | 9 votes)
1-5 minutes late (9.2% | 17 votes)
6-10 minutes late (11.4% | 21 votes)
11-15 minutes late (21.1% | 39 votes)
16+ minutes late (53.2% | 98 votes)
Total Votes: 184
|
| 8:02 |
: Hi everybody!
|
| 8:03 |
: Looking forward to a great game. Looks like most of you think the Dodgers win tonight.
|
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, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Kenley Jansen certainly hasn’t been ignored around here. Back in June, for instance, Travis looked at how Jansen’s reliance on a single pitch compares to Mariano Rivera’s. And yet, I still feel like we don’t really appreciate just how great Jansen really is. Throughout this postseason, so much of the focus seems to go to Clayton Kershaw and Justin Turner. Or if not them, then colorful characters like Yasiel Puig or feel-good stories like Chris Taylor. Often, Jansen feels lost. Now, maybe that’s just a case of me miscalculating the extent of the coverage he receives or just being far too tired to think straight by the time Jansen gets into games, but I feel like the big righty is a little underappreciated. But if he performs the way that he’s been performing, that may change for good this week.