A pitcher throwing a no-hitter typically receives the silent treatment once the late innings roll around. His teammates begin giving him a wide berth, leaving him alone with his thoughts. No one wants to be the guy who ruined a no-hitter by doing or saying the wrong thing, which includes invading a pitcher’s solitude.

What do pitchers think of the superstitious convention? Do they like being avoided between innings, or would they prefer everything to be as normal as possible? I asked several pitchers, some of whom have thrown a no-hitter. Here are their responses:

Clay Buchholz, Red Sox: “In the sixth inning of mine, I was sitting in the dugout by myself. No one talked to me. I was here for Jon Lester’s and it was the same thing. When Josh Beckett threw his, he was walking around talking to guys. He treated his a little differently, but for the most part, everybody leaves you alone. But it wouldn’t bother me if someone talked to me.”

R.A. Dickey, Blue Jays: “It’s part of tradition. You see the pitcher sitting at the end of the bench. When Johan (Santana) threw his, I was in a different spot every time, starting in the sixth inning. Everyone wants to feel they had a part in it, psychologically. That’s what every superstition is. You put the right sock on before the left and feel that’s part of what helps you succeed. It’s a bunch of gibberish, of course.”

Dennis Eckersley, Red Sox broadcaster: “Guys did (avoid me), but every game I sort of had my own place to sit. But having a no-no, everybody knows that. Later in the game, they didn’t come near me. I was so young then – I was 22 years old – and looking back, I didn’t know the difference.”

Doug Fister, Nationals: “I don’t like to have things changing. I want everything to be normal. Even if it’s one of my teammates – I don’t want them to start acting weird or do anything out of the ordinary. Just do the same thing you would if I’ve given up three hits or 10 hits. I want everything to be consistent.”

Kevin Gausman, Orioles: “It’s kind of an unspoken rule. You try to not be the reason – you don’t want the pitcher to say, ‘He never talks to me, but he came and talked to me and that’s why I gave up a hit.’ But honestly, most guys don’t talk to the pitcher on the days he pitches anyway. Some guys are really social on the days they pitch, but I usually only talk to a couple of guys.”

Ubaldo Jimenez, Orioles: “I’d rather things were just normal. That way you don’t have to think about how you’re doing something different. I would like to be normal, talking to the guys and pretending everything is the same. When I threw mine, some people (avoided me) but I talked to a couple of the guys. They came to me and I came to them.”

Daniel Norris, Blue Jays: “The other day, Hutch (Drew Hutchison) had five or six no-hit innings and we were just trying to keep it on the low. That’s around the time you start noticing. We were kind of staying normal, but we definitely knew what was going on.”

Henry Owens, Red Sox prospect: “I refrain from saying anything if someone else has one going. Ask Brian Johnson about my first start this year. He said something right before I gave up a hit (in the sixth inning). But as far as superstitions go, I don’t really believe in them. Everyone was saying, ‘Brian, apologize,’ but I told him I didn’t care.”

Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals: “It’s just something they’ve been doing over the years, and it doesn’t affect me either way. Some pitchers don’t want to be bothered, but I’d rather keep it the same as if I was giving up three, four, or five hits. I don’t like sitting there by myself and not having anyone to talk to. You realize a no-hitter is going on whether there are people talking to you or not.”

This seems to be this season’s week to weigh in on the designated-hitter debate. It’s a debate people will have over and over again, making the same points, until baseball changes the way things operate, and even then for a little longer still. What sparked the latest discussion, of course, was Adam Wainwright’s season-ending injury, which wouldn’t have happened as a hitter if he didn’t have to hit. To many, it was just unnecessary, especially given how dangerous it is to just pitch, and so on we go, into a most familiar back-and-forth.

I don’t think I have a position. That won’t surprise some of you. I’m obviously a fan of a version of baseball that has different rules for different leagues. If the rules were made to be the same, I imagine I’d remain a fan of the result. I think my true position is that, while I’d understand if the National League were given a DH, I’d miss the pitcher-hitting statistics. It’s just one of the things that I’m into, because pitcher hitting is like a rulebook-mandated experiment. The numbers are silly, and I spend more of my time thinking about baseball than I do watching baseball. It’s more fun to think about a version of baseball where sometimes, pitchers have to hit for themselves, even though they all suck.

And speaking of all of them sucking — boy, do they ever. You’ve long known this to be true, with rare exception. But you might not have noticed what’s gone on for this season’s first month. Things are getting worse.

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Four years ago, in these same electronic pages, the present author published a ranking of all 30 clubs’ center-field broadcast camera angles. The immediate purpose: to create a reference for anyone with access to MLB.TV, MLB Extra Innings, or some other manner of game video, so that he or she might be better equipped to choose the ideal feed. Last year, I provided an updated edition of that original post.

What follows is the product of an almost identical exercise — updated to account for whatever changes (if any) have occurred within the last calendar year.

In general, cameras have been assessed according to the ability with which they document the pitcher-batter encounter. More specifically, I’ve utilized three guiding criteria, as follow:

• Shot Angle
  In which more central and lower is generally preferred.
• Shot Size
  In which closer up and not longer is generally preferred.
• Whim
  In which the author’s own intuition has been utilized.

In what follows, I’ve embedded screencaps for all 30 of the league’s center-field cameras, broken down into three categories: Top Ten, Bottom Five, and The Rest. In every case, I’ve used images featuring only right-handed pitchers at the peak of their leg kick — so that the orientation of that pitcher’s body might least distort the perception of the camera angle. Furthermore, I’ve attempted to identify weekday feeds from the home club’s regional broadcast — as opposed to weekend and/or national broadcasts, which sometimes utilize a different feed or graphics. In that same spirit, I’ve also attempted to find representative moments that feature the relevant broadcasts typical score bug and strike-zone plot (if the latter exists).

The reader will note that straight-on shots constitute the most highly ranked of the center-field cameras. This makes sense, of course: straight-on shots portray lefties and righties in the same way and document pitch movement in a way that off-set cameras can’t. The reader will also note that a small collection of notes and observations appears at the very bottom of this post.

Finally, if the reader finds that I’ve erred in any of the screen captures here, don’t hesitate to make note of same below.

Top Ten
1. Pittsburgh Pirates

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Let’s reflect on the FanGraphs staff predictions, shall we? Seems like a great idea for the 28th of April. Every single voter selected the Nationals to win the National League East. Okay, great start. Taijuan Walker got the most votes for the American League Rookie of the Year, and his ERA’s almost 7. Daniel Norris also got some meaningful support. Devon Travis got half as many votes as Norris did. So the best you could say is that Travis at least got his name picked by a few people. I bring this up because, as silly as it is to be thinking about awards in the season’s first month, right now Travis ranks third in baseball in wRC+. Perhaps more shocking, Travis ranks fourth in baseball in isolated power. The Blue Jays decided to start Travis out of the gate even though he never spent a day at the highest level of the minors. All he’s done is out-hit the scorching-hot Nelson Cruz.

And this is a Toronto second baseman we’re talking about. Certainly, it’s not like the position is cursed. There’ve been good second basemen in Toronto before, and there’ll be good second basemen in Toronto again, after the Travis days are over. But the Blue Jays are the reason you even recognize the name Ryan Goins. Devon Travis isn’t Ryan Goins. It’s not quite clear what Devon Travis is, but one answer seems to be “surprisingly powerful.”

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Oakland starter Jesse Hahn is throwing the changeup more than ever before. In some ways, it’s new. In other ways, though, this was the changeup he’s always had. This isn’t just semantics or word play, though.

Let’s make the case that Hahn’s changeup is new, first, and see what that might mean for Hahn.

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We’re almost done with April, which means we’re closer than we were before to being able to stop with the standard “it’s early” caveat we heartily employ during this time of year. For better or for worse, however, it’s still early. The good news (besides the obvious fact of it being April and baseball is being played) is that most starting pitchers have made enough starts to provide us with some sample of data to comb through for patterns and changes compared to last year. There’s still a lot of noise in that data, but there’s some signal, and we’re going to see what we can get out of a fun data set today.

It’s interesting news when a pitcher starts throwing a new pitch effectively, mostly because it happens pretty rarely. What’s also interesting news is when a pitcher starts throwing a pitch he already had in his arsenal more often, especially when he does so to an extreme level. With that in mind, let’s look at a table of starting pitchers, sorted by the percentage of sliders that they’ve thrown so far in 2015:
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The recent promotions of Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Carlos Rodon have created a good deal of buzz these past couple of weeks. Deservingly so. Kiley McDaniel ranked the trio first, third and eighth respectively in his pre-season rankings. Any time a prospect of that caliber gets called up to the big leagues, it’s certainly newsworthy.

But there was another promising, young prospect who recently got the call. But his debut was somewhat overshadowed — at least outside of the New York region — by Russell and Rodon, who both debuted on the same day. As you probably guessed by the title of this piece, that player is 24-year-old Mets catcher, Kevin Plawecki.

Plawecki got the call to replace Travis d’Arnaud, who broke his finger after taking a pitch on the hand. d’Arnaud’s expected to miss at least the next month, but that timeline could easily grow longer given the unpredictable nature of hand injuries. Plawecki — and not the objectively handsome, yet offensively challenged, Anthony Recker — will pick up the lion’s share of playing time in d’Arnaud’s absence, meaning Plawecki will play a crucial role for the surprisingly-competitive Mets.

Plawecki may not have the cachet of the other guys who got called up over the last couple of weeks, but he’s a pretty well-regarded prospect in his own right. A supplemental first round pick in 2012, Plawecki placed 40th on Kiley McDaniel’s top 200 list last winter, and landed in the middle of just about every top 100 list out there. Read the rest of this entry »

With Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke anchoring the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rotation, it will be nearly impossible for the Dodgers to have a bad rotation, but the Dodgers had depth problems entering the spring with Brett Anderson penciled in as the number five starter and little behind him in case a starter should falter. The lack of depth gained some early exposure, with Hyun-Jin Ryu unable to start the year with the team as he continues to work his way back from shoulder problems. The Dodgers received another blow last night, with news that Brandon McCarthy would miss the rest of the season as he joins the Tommy John Surgery waiting list.

The Dodgers have gotten by in the early going without relying on a single fifth starter, instead giving one start each to Mike Bolsinger, David Huff, and Scott Baker. David Huff is no longer on the 40-man roster, although the Dodgers will have an opening if they choose to put Brandon McCarthy on the 60-day disabled list. Scott Baker is currently scheduled to make this Friday’s start against Arizona, making him the de facto fourth starter behind Kershaw, Greinke, and Anderson. The Dodgers have an off day on Thursday which means they can pitch their top three starters on normal rest Saturday through Monday before needing their fifth starter again on Tuesday.

Prior to McCarthy’s injury, the Dodgers pitching Depth Chart for the rest of the season looked like this.
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Player decline is a varied and interesting topic. Hitters become less effective and eventually go away for a multitude of reasons, from injury to an increasing inability to make contact, or the right types of contact. The increasing availability of batted-ball data makes it possible to analyze decline in new ways. Declining authority levels, increasing pull tendencies; these are only a couple of the variables that can hasten a hitter’s descent. Today, let’s take a look at Aramis Ramirez, focusing on his 2014 batted-ball data to uncover some information that could have foretold his ongoing rapid decline in this, his final MLB season. Read the rest of this entry »

A fun question from last Friday’s chat:

Comment From Zob Lerblaw
How many games do the Mets have to get ahead of the Nationals and by what date to believe they may win the east? 15 games by June 1?

Since the question was asked, the Mets lost two of three over the weekend against the Yankees. So, if you’re a believer in momentum, the Mets have a little less than they used to. On the other hand, since the question was asked, the Nationals lost three of three against the Marlins. So while the Mets lost ground to Miami, they gained on Washington, which is the team they’d be most concerned about. At this writing, with the season almost 12% over, the Mets lead the Nationals by a full seven games.

The Mets are a worse baseball team than the Nationals are. I’m not 100% certain that’s true, but I’m definitely more than half certain that’s true. There is some point at which the season record becomes more meaningful than the projected numbers, but that point comes nowhere close to as early as April, and just last year the Nationals won almost 100 games. Any system that overreacts to the early start is a bad system; from this point forward, the Nationals should realistically be expected to be terrific.

Yet, the season still feels new. It feels like just yesterday that the Nationals seemed to have the biggest division edge in baseball. Already, that edge is almost all gone. The NL East is on the verge of becoming a coin flip.

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