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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Brent Morel started at third base for the Pirates on Monday. The same Brent Morel who has a career .272 on-base percentage. He started again at third base last night as well. This must have struck fear into the hearts of Pittsburgh Pirates fans, perhaps giving them some flashbacks to the bad old days. Thankfully, that shouldn’t happen very often, as the prodigal son — Aramis Ramirez — has returned. The Pirates re-acquired him on Thursday evening in exchange for minor-league pitcher Yhonathan Barrios.
When Aramis Ramirez left the shores of the Allegheny, he had accumulated just 3.2 WAR in his 2,253 plate appearances in a Pittsburgh uniform. But with the Pirates’ National League Central rivals in Chicago and Milwaukee, he went on to become the player the Pirates always envisioned him as. Now on the brink of 40 WAR for his career — a bar that has only been crossed by 40 other third baseman in big-league history — Ramirez is back in black and gold, and Neal Huntington and Co. couldn’t have picked a better time to bring him back into the fold.
| 4:09 |
: Hi everybody!
Join me tonight at 9 pm ET, and we’ll talk some baseball. Or whatever. Jeff may join us later as well. I’m too tired to think up something snappy to say, so we’ll just go with that. Oh, go read Owen’s piece today at THT. He spent a lot of time on it. |
| 9:01 |
: Hi everyone! One second.
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| 9:03 |
Have you paid any attention to how Schwarber is looking defensively since he’s been called back up? |
| 9:04 |
: I heard it was not great with a couple errors at C his first day behind the plate.
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| 9:04 |
: I was watching some tonight. He looked just fine to me. Hammel was burying balls in the dirt, and he was backhanding them pretty fluidly. I guess you would like to see him block the ball instead of back-handing, but it didn’t look like a trainwreck or anything.
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| 9:05 |
You are the new pitching coach for the New York Yankees (Congrats!), how do you get Eovaldi to strike folks out? |
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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Whoa, that was a rough two days without baseball. But the wait is almost over. (And, in fact, the Royals and White Sox are in the first inning as of press time.) As we grind our nails into a fine paste waiting for the second half to start, here are 10 questions that I’ll be hoping the second half answers. Perhaps you have others. If so, let me know in the comments, but these are mine. Let’s get to it.
The first half saw the introduction of some really top-shelf talent, with some of those young players immediately vaulting to the top of Dave’s trade-value rankings, including Carlos Correa at #5 after just 32 major-league games. That probably won’t be topped, but the second half hasn’t even started yet, and we already know of one more prospect who is set for his big league debut in Frankie Montas. Montas was ranked 113th by Kiley before the season, and his 3.03 FIP ranks 10th across all of Double-A; his 2.47 ERA, 13th.
Are you going to be in town for the Saber Seminar? Of course you are, you wouldn’t miss the best baseball conference of the year, would you? Of course not. And, are you of legal drinking age and would like to meet up with other people who will be at the conference? Well, why wouldn’t you be? We can’t think of one good reason. So, for the third straight year, we’re organizing a Meetup at The Mead Hall in Cambridge on Friday, August 21, aka Saber Seminar Eve.
| 5:11 |
: i everybody! Tonight, the FanGraphs After Dark chat is hereby replaced by the All-Star Game Live Blog! My goal is to get started around 7:15 pm, so we have time to chat before first pitch.
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| 5:12 |
: So tune back in around that time. If I’m not here, know that it’s only because I’m trying to wrangle the children into their pajamas. Until then, I’ll get some polls going. See you soon!
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| 5:14 |
: American League
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| 5:15 |
: American League
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| 5:16 |
: All-Star Game
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| 5:26 |
: Mookie Betts
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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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
On Wednesday night, Alex Gordon strained a groin muscle chasing a fly ball. If you just adjusted in your seat, I don’t blame you — it sounds painful. He’ll be out for eight weeks, which is better news than the team could have received. If the Royals can hold the fort down until then, they just may have him back in time for the stretch run. Of course, injuries don’t always follow a defined timetable, so we’ll see. Still, there’s hope Gordon can come back. That’s better than nothing. The question is, though: how will they absorb his loss?
For now, they are going to roll with Jarrod Dyson and Paulo Orlando. This isn’t a bad plan! As I’ve discussed in the past, Dyson is worthy of a starting position. His defense is still top notch. Here’s a reminder:
| 5:44 |
: Hi everybody! Jeff is on vacation, so you’re stuck with just me! Get your questions in, and I’ll see you at 9 pm ET.
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| 9:00 |
: OK, let’s do this.
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| 9:00 |
Did you have a good 4th, Paul? |
| 9:00 |
: I did. Went to a friend’s lake house, and two of the houses on his lake had dueling illegal fireworks shows. It was pretty awesome, actually.
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| 9:01 |
One of these years there will be a FG meetup I can make it to. |
| 9:01 |
: I know, I was disappointed I couldn’t make the DC one this weekend, since I set it up and all. But I heard good things!
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