Nathan Eovaldi is making the transition from thrower to pitcher, and the results are striking. In 37-and-a-third innings over six April starts the 24-year-old Miami Marlins right-hander punched out 35 batters and allowed just five walks. His ERA was a sparkling 2.58.

Eovaldi is thriving on simplicity. Two out of three pitches he’s thrown this year have been fastballs averaging 96 mph. He’s consistently attacking the bottom half of the zone, resulting in a 55.5% ground-ball rate. According to bench coach Rob Leary, that’s by design.

“He’s getting a lot of [ground balls] on his fastball,” said Leary. “We’re not asking him to strike anyone out. We’re not asking any of our pitchers to strike anyone out. The more efficient they are, the longer they can go. We saw that with Henderson Alvarez recently when he threw a 90-pitch complete game. We want our pitchers to get outs with quality pitches, and the sooner the better. Balls down in the zone get put into play, typically on the ground.”

Pitchers with high ground-ball rates are often assumed to throw a two-seam fastball. Eovaldi doesn’t. With semantics in mind, even when his fastball sinks, it’s not a sinker.

“I don’t throw a two-seam,” explained Eovaldi. “I throw a four-seam and grip the ball the same every time. I’m just trying to throw good-quality low strikes and a lot more of my pitches have been down by the knees this year. I don’t really pay much attention to the movement I might be getting. I just throw to where the glove is.”

“He throws a four-seam that’s real heavy,” explained catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. “Most guys throw the ball and you just catch it. Nate’s ball has that little extra oomph. He can throw it down in the zone and he can also throw it up here [at the letters] where it looks good and you swing, but it’s hard to square up because it’s 98.”

Leary feels Eovaldi is making the transition from thrower to pitcher, but acknowledges that the flame-throwing youngster is still a work in progress. Is he more than a thrower?

“Absolutely,” responded Leary. “He obviously possesses a real big arm, and when you have that type of fastball people are going to say ‘He’s a thrower’ or ‘He’s just a power guy.’ But I don’t consider him that. He just needs to continue to refine his pitches. He has the makings of three good off-speed pitches, it’s just a matter of consistency.

“He uses the slider more than his curveball, but at any time, or any night, they’re both very good pitches. They’re out pitches. Again, it’s just a matter of consistency. Between last year and this year we’ve seen him improve, and we want to continue to see good progress.”

Saltalamacchia echoed Leary.

“He’s obviously got a really good fastball, so once he gets his secondary stuff down he’s going to be one of the top pitchers in the game,” said Saltalamacchia. “He’d be right up there with Jose Fernandez right now if he didn’t struggle with his secondary a little bit. But he’s working on it. His slider is his second-best pitch and his curveball is becoming a good pitch. His changeup is getting better.”

Eovaldi’s understanding of how to pitch is clearly getting better. He’s still more about power than finesse, and probably always will be, but he’s no longer just a thrower. His emergence as a quality starter bears that out, as does his simple-yet-maturing approach.

“It’s not necessarily about velocity,” said Eovaldi. “If you can locate pitches you’re going to be good, no matter how hard you’re throwing. I’ve been able to throw a lot more quality strikes and repeat the good arm slot on my slider more consistently. How much I throw my curveball depends on the hitter, the situation, the count, and whether they’re on my fastball or not. It’s about knowing strengths and weaknesses, and mixing pitches. But everything is going to work off my fastball.”

——

At the end of the 2009 season I interviewed Josh Reddick for a now-defunct print publication. He was 27 games into his big-league career, having debuted that summer with the Red Sox. We covered several topics, from rookie hazing to rumors he would be traded in the offseason.

Reddick wasn’t traded that winter, but he was two years later, to Oakland. The A’s are at Fenway Park this weekend, so I decided it might be fun to revisit parts of our old conversation.

One of the first things I asked about was the mohawk he shaved off when he got called up from the minor leagues. His response was similar to what it was four-and-a-half years ago.

“I felt like it wouldn’t be a good first impression to make on a bunch of guys I didn’t know very well,” said Reddick. “A 22-year-old rookie making his debut in a mohawk probably wouldn’t look too good.”

The Oakland outfielder is colorful, and prone to changing his look from time to time, so I asked if he’d be comfortable wearing one now. He didn’t sound inclined. Not that he’s especially pleased with his current coif.

“My hair has pretty much been the same since then,” said Reddick. “I’ve gone with the longer hair look, except for now. The stylist screwed up and took too much off. But I haven’t done anything crazy with my hair like mohawk it, spike it or blond it. The only crazy thing I’ve really done here is the beard thing.”

The beard thing. Reddick explained it this way.

“Coco [Crisp] and I started a little one-on-one challenge for who could grow the best facial hair,” said Reddick, who in 2009 told me he’d ‘always been a facial hair guy.’ “This was coming into the spring of 2013. I dominated him. Coco couldn’t grow it nearly as well as I could. I decided to keep it for awhile, and then [WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan] challenged me to a beard-off. Everybody knows how big of a wrestling fan I am, so of course I jumped right on that. Later, he shaved mine off, which was fun. He’s the champion now, and his big push came right after our beard-off, so I’ll have to take credit for that.”

Is there anyone in the Oakland clubhouse who could compete with him in a beard-off?

“The only guy who seems like he could come close is [Derek] Norris,” opined Reddick. “He’s got a pretty good one right now. [Sean] Doolittle has had a pretty good one, but he keeps his pretty thinned. Mine was thick and long.”

Reddick admits he would have fit in well with last year’s well-bearded Red Sox team. It could have happened were it not for the December 2011 deal that sent him west. Don’t blame Theo Epstein.

“I got traded the year after Theo left for Chicago,” explained Reddick. “It was Ben Cherington’s first year. I actually saw Theo in spring training of 2012 and he said, ‘Yeah, man, I told you I wasn’t going to trade you. Ben did and he’s got his own willpower.’ So yeah, Theo held out his end of the bargain. He didn’t trade me.”

——

I wasn’t surprised to learn Mike Ekstrom is playing in Italy and blogging about the experience. Back when I authored the Minor Issues column at Baseball Prospectus, Ekstom was featured twice. On one occasion we discussed travel. In the other he weighed in on Dirk Hayhurst’s “Bullpen Gospels.”

Ekstrom had a fairly nondescript career stateside. He pitched for the Padres, Rays and Rockies, but most of his time was spent in the minors. His big-league resume consists of 51 relief outings from 2008-2012. Last year he turned 30 and logged a 5.14 ERA between a pair of Triple-A stops. The writing was on the wall.

“I didn’t have many good options back in the US,” Ekstrom told me recently. “I wasn’t really interested in indie ball or Mexico, so I thought of Italy. Europe had been on my radar for a few years as a place to travel and play before moving on. My team takes care of all my expenses, gives me a car, and pays a decent salary. I’ll make 16-20 starts and get to experience life in Europe for the summer. It’s a different atmosphere, but a fun place to play and live.

“I’ve been fortunate to see baseball in some unique places,” continued Ekstrom. “I’ve played in traditional markets like Australia and Asia, but I’ve also seen baseball in less-conventional places like Iceland, Vietnam, and now Italy. Playing before raucous crowds in Taiwan is exciting, but holding a baseball clinic in Iceland or watching Japanese businessmen and Vietnamese teenagers play a sandlot game in Hanoi are moments I really enjoy and like sharing.”

Sharing his experiences is something Ekstrom does well. It may not be fair to say he’s a better writer than pitcher, but he’s moving in that direction.

“I created Baseball Round the World as a way to learn some relative skills for when I need a real job,” explained Ekstrom. “Maybe that’s web design, writing or marketing. It’s also a way to share my experiences and keep in touch with friends and family back home. I’ve never been a huge fan of player blogs – they usually seem self-serving and lame – but it’s been a fun project. Plus, it’ll be nice to have something on my resume other than ‘fringe-average professional baseball pitcher.’

Ekstrom isn’t the only player – fringe-average or otherwise – whose stories will populate the blog going forward.

“I plan to expand the website and add interviews from old teammates and friends who’ve played overseas,” explained Ekstrom. “I think it’ll be really interesting to have a site that paints a picture of the wide variety of professional leagues and youth programs around the globe. When I’m done playing I’d like to work in international baseball in some capacity. So far I have interviews to post from guys who’ve played in Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Vietnam, Austria, Germany, and New Zealand. I’ll start rolling out interviews next week and expand from there.”

Here are two examples of Ekstrom’s writing. The first has yet to be published. The second is excerpted from an earlier entry in his blog.

Ekstrom: “Recently, I’ve heard a lot about John Grisham’s book Playing for Pizza – a novel about an American football player, playing in Italy. I think my Italian experience could be more accurately described as Playing for Parmesan & Prosciutto. It seems that in life and in baseball, everything in Italy revolves around food. Just last week, we had a 90-minute practice followed by a three-hour meat-fest of a team barbecue. Last night, our practice was cut short by some light showers – we don’t have a tarp, it’s great! — but the team dinner raged well past midnight. Even during our games, seeing a reliever pounding a piadina – the local flatbread, prosciutto and cheese sandwich – in the fifth inning isn’t out of place. Don’t get me wrong, despite our complete lack of speed on the base paths, I think it’s fantastic. This love of food isn’t specific to my team in Rimini either, Italian league teams largely stick to a station-to-station approach on offense. As an import player, initially I had some concerns about finding the right food here. On the contrary, the food has been a highlight and it’s unexpectedly helped me manage the running game while I’m pitching.

“One difference in the games is that players – especially on the other team — are really passionate and vocal about each and every play. Perhaps it’s because we only play two games a week, but it really felt like a college atmosphere with the entire dugout hanging on each pitch. It’s quite a difference, and definitely less peaceful than the standard apathetic and silent Triple-A dugout. A small part of me felt bad for the umpire – except he was brutal — because regardless of him calling a strike or ball, one team was gonna be yelling at him. Capra means “goat” in Italian, and that’s gonna be my go-to word when yelling at the umpires.”

——

On at least one occasion, Bill King used far stronger language when expressing his opinion to an official. Notable is the fact he was broadcasting the game.

A legendary broadcaster in the Bay Area, King was the voice of the Oakland A’s from 1981-2005. He also called games for the football Raiders, from 1966-1992, and the basketball Warriors, from 1962-1983. His life and career are chronicled in “Holy Toledo: Lessons From Bill King, Renaissance Man of the Mic,” which was published last year. The book’s author is a legend of his own. Ken Korach worked alongside King and is now in his 19th season in the A’s radio booth.

In Korach’s words, King “had a thing for authority figures which manifested itself in his feelings for umpires and officials. He wore his emotions on his sleeve and there was no middle ground.”

I asked Korach for examples of King’s emotional diatribes. He shared two, both of which are told in more detail in his book.

Korach: “According to my boss, Ken Pries – he still works for the A’s – several times he got a call from Major League Baseball expressing concern about something Bill allegedly said on the air about umpires. One time Ken was called down to the umpire’s dressing room at the Coliseum because the crew chief felt Bill had crossed the line, that it had been a personal attack. Ken checked the tape and told him, ‘Listen, I think Bill got emotional, but I don’t think he crossed the line or got personal.’ He gave the crew chief the tape and said, ‘If you have a problem, let me know.’ He never heard back.

“The most-infamous Bill King story was from December 1968. The Warriors were playing the Supersonics, in Seattle. It was a very competitive game with a lot of fouls. Late in the game a call went against the Warriors. Bill was working courtside and wearing an old harness mic, which was attached to his chest. Bill was outraged by a call made by Ed Rush – maybe the most famous NBA official ever – and ripped off his harness mic. He screamed at Rush, ‘You mother______!’ The engineer didn’t get his signal to cut the crowd mic, so those words went out over the air, over 50,000 watts in Northern California.

“A few years later, in December, the Warriors were in San Diego playing the Clippers. Ed Rush got a Mother’s Day card and wrote on it, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, Ed.’ and gave it to Bill before the game. From that point on, every year, Ed and Bill would celebrate Mother’s Day, in December, in honor of what happened that one day in Seattle.”

Hey there, people who were six once, and welcome to the second part of the year’s first edition of The Worst Of The Best. Here is a link to Thursday’s first part, and here is a link to the complete series archive. If you were to explore that archive and go back to 2013, you’d find several apologies for how the second parts tend not to feature very much event diversity. This is the part about wild swings, and by my methodology, the overwhelming majority of the wild swings come on two-strike swings at stuff in the dirt. Here’s an excerpt from a post from the middle of last August:

With the wildest swings, almost invariably we end up with five swings at two-strike breaking balls in the dirt. That’s just the way it is, and of course all those swings are ill-advised, but part of the fun is supposed to be the surprise, and here we don’t really get many surprises. I don’t know what to do about that and it’s too late in 2013 to just up and change the methodology. […] I am sorry. I’ll have to figure some stuff out before 2014.

I never got around to figuring any stuff out. So you’re going to see the same stupid predictable crap as always. I’ll have to figure some stuff out before 2015.

Below, the wildest swings of the season, up through the end of April. Featured in some detail is a top-five list. Provided with less detail is a next-five list, and there are also two bonus inclusions. It’s all based on PITCHf/x data, so I can only work with what I’m given, and I don’t count checked swings or swing attempts on hit-and-runs. I only want to highlight hitters who decided to swing on their own, and who didn’t think better of it in the middle. These are swings at pitches furthest from the center of the strike zone. I repeat this every time but I’m sure you got the message ages ago. Let’s load some .gifs and laugh at some millionaires.

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In the early going, much of the coverage on the Rockies has centered around Charlie Blackmon’s leap from irrelevance. Overshadowed during that time has been the even better start by Troy Tulowitzki. While generally regarded as one of the best players in the game, Tulowitzki frequently goes overlooked. But his hot start has put him in position to squarely insert himself in the Most Valuable Player Award discussion.

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A few weeks ago, I posted an early look at the wOBA differential for each team in Major League Baseball. By simply focusing on the linear weight value of the hits that teams have both accrued and allowed, I think we get a better look at a team’s actual performance, rather than including the noise that comes from the sequences of events, which is inherently baked into runs and wins. wOBA differential is a nice, easy way to look at a team’s performance without the effects of sequencing, and provides a nice guideline as to who is actually playing well at the time.

However, wOBA isn’t an an all-encompassing stat, and the wOBA differential tables always have to come with some caveats. Baserunning, for instance, isn’t included in wOBA, so wOBA differential will overrate teams with lumbering sluggers who don’t convert baserunners into runs at a normal rate. And there are even a few extra omissions on the run prevention side of things, as wOBA allowed only measures the outs-on-balls-in-play aspects of fielding, and not the outs-on-the-bases aspects, so teams that are good at throwing out runners, preventing steals, or turning double plays are underrated by wOBA differential as well.

But, in looking at those flaws, we actually have data for all of those events here on FanGraphs. We track the run value of a team’s baserunning, and both UZR and DRS include components to reward teams for turning double plays or throwing out advancing runners (or discouraging runners from advancing to begin with) from the outfield. So, since these are fixable flaws, I decided to take wOBA differential a couple of steps further and turn it into expected run differential.

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Twice this offseason, Joey Votto has uttered a comment that goes against the baseball orthodoxy that lineup protection is best done behind the hitter. Votto believes it is done in front of him, and is best done by Billy Hamilton.

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The Padres are a team that always just kind of blends in. They do little to call attention to themselves, and they seldom excel in any particular category. Right now, they’re a few games under .500, close to the race without being actively involved in the race, and they appear set for another season best described as inoffensive.

Per usual, the Padres are a team without star players. At the moment, they’re featuring baseball’s worst team offense. They have a middle-of-the-pack rotation, and they have a fine if slightly overachieving bullpen. The team defense, as a group, has been right around the league average. In a lot of ways, this Padres team is unremarkable. In still more ways, this Padres team is worse than that.

But there’s one area where the Padres have been better than anyone else. One area where the Padres might continue to be at least among the league leaders. It’s an area that doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, but is gaining traction every month. The Padres have gotten to pitch to the best strike zone in the majors.

Read the rest at FoxSports.com.

Dan Uggla isn’t the most popular player in Atlanta, and he has only himself to blame. The well-compensated second baseman has hit .213/.320/.399 since being acquired from the Marlins prior to the 2011 season. After going deep 36 times in his first year in a Braves uniform, he’s seen his power numbers plummet. His K rate has climbed.

Uggla isn’t necessarily cooked. The ability to drive a baseball is still there, and his OBP skills – always good for a low-average hitter – haven’t completely deserted him. At 34 years old, he’s not over the hill. It’s a matter of rediscovering his stroke, which he readily admits is easier said than done.

Uggla talked about his struggles, and what it will take to regain his old form, prior to a mid-April game at Turner Field.

——

Ugla on his approach: “When I first broke in, I was more of a hitter. I wasn’t worried about home runs at all. I knew I had power. But after a few years of hitting a lot of home runs, I kind of… you have to be mentally strong enough to stay within yourself and just try to hit the ball hard where it’s pitched. The last couple of years, whether it was because of coming to a new city, getting a new contract, or whatever, I got caught up in trying too hard and wanting to hit home runs. I let my approach get away from me. It’s been a huge challenge to get back to where I was. I doubt I’ll ever be known as a hitter that hits home runs, as opposed to a guy that hits homers and swings and misses a lot.

“I’ve always been a see-ball-hit-ball guy. The difference the last couple years is that when I’ve seen a pitch in the zone, it’s been an automatic, ‘I can hit a homer on this pitch,’ rather than, ‘Just see it and hit it hard where it’s pitched, and if it goes out it goes out.’ My approach hasn’t changed as far as looking in zones or sitting on pitches – it’s still see-ball-hit-ball – I’m just not hitting as well as I did.”

On walks and strikeouts: “Some people draw a bunch of [walks] and some people don’t. You can look at it a couple different ways. For guys who can hurt you with one swing — the 30-homer guys — pitchers are going to be more careful. They’re going to try to pick around you a little more. They’re going to throw more balls out of the zone, more junk in the dirt. You get better at laying off those pitches. At the same time, guys who don’t walk a lot make more contact when they swing the bat. I’ve been making a little more contact this year, so my walk rate is down. That’s fine. Everything is going to pan out the way it’s supposed to pan out.

“Joey Votto makes a lot of hard contact and walks a lot. Freddie Freeman makes a lot of hard contact and doesn’t walk a lot. Guys like me and Russell Branyan… we’re not really cutting down our swings with two strikes. We’re just trying to be selective and battle. We can still go deep with two strikes.

“If it was after 2011, I’d say you could look at my career and say what you want about strikeouts and I’ll prove you wrong every time. But the last two years it has been a problem. It does need to be addressed. I didn’t drive in 90 runs and hit 30 homers, so there has to be an adjustment made. I have to get my swing back to where I’m making more contact so I can drive in runs. That’s whether it’s with home runs, two-out base hits, or whatever. Last year there were way too many strikeouts and not enough production.”

On Three True Outcomes and advanced stats: “I’ve heard [TTO] a lot in the last few years. I probably wasn’t on that list when I was in Florida, but that’s the perception here in Atlanta. Everybody looks at batting average, but when you get to this level it’s all about run production. I’ve always been a guy who produces runs. Even though I had the worst year of my career last year, I still drove in almost 60. That’s not good by my standards, by any means, but it’s not terrible.

“My on-base percentage was somewhere around .300 and when you hit .180 that’s hard to do. That’s been a big thing for me. I’ve always had a pretty good on-base percentage, whether I hit .240-something or .280-something. I’ve been close to scoring 100 and driving in 100, and that’s what’s most important to me.

“I don’t look at WAR and stuff like that. I’m familiar with it – things like ‘The Shredder’ on MLB Network – but I know how people view me. None of that matters. Last year was tough because I wasn’t able to live up to my usual self, but everyone is going to have a down year. I know what I’ve done in my career, and I know what I’m capable of.”

On his swing: “I had a lot of bad things going on in my pre-swing last year and that led to my swing not being very good. My setup wasn’t letting me get to the right spot to recognize pitches and put the barrel on the ball. I was missing pitches I should be hitting. I wasn’t in sync mechanically. There’s a huge connection between mental and physical. Being mentally strong is important, and mechanically… all the years before, I was always able to hit. If you threw a 99-mph fastball and I was ready for it, I was going to hit it. Last year that wasn’t the case. It was more that if I hit it, I got lucky. I’m trying to fix that. It’s definitely a work in progress, but I feel great this year. I haven’t got hot yet, but I’m feeling better and better every day.”

Hey there everybody, and welcome to the first part of the year’s first edition of The Worst Of The Best. If you don’t know what this series is all about, here’s a link to the complete 2013 archive. As an alternative to reading through the archive, you might elect to not read through the archive. The idea, it turns out, is very easy to understand, and I explain it in plain English every time, and there’s never any carryover from one edition to the next. Some people have been asking if this series would return. Quite obviously, now, the answer is yes, but this’ll be running every month instead of ~every week. The public explanation is that, week to week, there isn’t enough diversity. The private explanation is that this is a lot of work. Thankfully, you guys are only privy to the public explanation. I don’t need to get stuck with a lazy rep.

Here, we’re going to look at the wildest pitches thrown in April, and thrown in March, too, since March only had a couple days of games. We’re going to look at the wildest pitches thrown so far. It’s based on PITCHf/x, so excluded are any and all pitches that didn’t generate PITCHf/x data (remember that there were two games in Australia). Sometimes that means I leave something out, but I’d rather make the occasional omission than watch every pitch of every game. The MLB Fan Cave sounds like a nightmare. I’ve defined the wildest pitches as the pitches ending up the furthest from the center of the strike zone. It works as a proxy and you’ll take what I give you. In detail, we’ll run through the top five. I’ll also present to you, quickly, the next five. Here now are five wild pitches, that were not among the five wildest pitches.

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Less than 96 hours after TMZ.com published a racist and hate-filled audio recording between Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his then-girlfriend V. Stiviano, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver suspended Sterling from any and all NBA activities for life; fined Sterling $2.5 million; and asked the other 29 NBA owners to force a sale of the Clippers. When asked at his press conference what authority he had to force Sterling to sell the team, Silver replied:

The owners have the authority subject to three quarters vote of the ownership group, of the partners, to remove him as an owner.

Silver didn’t go into specifics, and when asked questions about his authority to suspend Sterling for life and impose a $2.5 million fine, he replied:

I’ll let the lawyers lay out for you the specific provisions of our constitution. Let’s just leave it that we have the authority to act as I’ve recommended.

A few hours later, the NBA made its Constitution and By-Laws available to the media through the league’s media center website. Deadspin, among others, published the document in full and provided a link for those of us who aren’t NBA media members.

So let’s take a  look at Silver’s authority.

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There might not be two pitches as divisive as the splitter and the cutter. At least, there aren’t two pitches that are banned from development in multiple organizations across baseball like the splitter and the cutter. Dan Haren throws the splitter and the cutter.

That isn’t to say that he hasn’t had to be careful about throwing the two controversial pitches. Many of his adjustments over the course of his career have had to do with how he’s treated them. In fact, their story tells his story, in a way.

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