It is a certain treat to be able to watch baseball players not know what they’re doing. It’s not something you hope for all of the time, because then you’re just watching the Astros, but on occasion, it’s a little spice that can go a long way. A little bit of absurdity to season what might otherwise be a relatively unwatchable game. So often, we marvel at how these players are extraordinary at what they do. We watch them because we can’t be them. We appreciate, then, the moments at which they’re most like us.

The most popular and highly-anticipated example is the case of the position player taking the mound. Position players are trained to be position players and not pitchers, but sometimes they have to pitch, either because it’s a blowout or because extra innings won’t end. They’ve all, of course, pitched in the past, but they aren’t trained major leaguers, so they’re basically us + talent. Another, less-discussed example is the case of the relief pitcher batting. Relief pitchers are trained to be pitchers and not batters, but sometimes they bat, either because it’s a blowout or the situation is desperate. They’ve all, of course, batted in the past, but they aren’t trained major leaguers, so they’re basically us + talent.

It’s fun to watch position players pitch. It’s fun to watch relief pitchers bat. Wednesday night in St. Louis, in a game between the Dodgers and the Cardinals, fans witnessed them both. And they witnessed them both happen at the same time.

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Last year, Miguel Cabrera won the American League Triple Crown and the American League Most Valuable Player Award. You might’ve heard about that. This year, Miguel Cabrera has been even better. His wRC+ is up dozens of points. His WAR is almost even despite it still being the beginning of August. Offensively, Cabrera’s been having one of the very greatest seasons ever, helping to make up for Prince Fielder’s extended slump. Cabrera’s been the kind of good we take for granted — we eventually take all kinds of good for granted — but in those fleeting moments of clarity and appreciation, Cabrera knocks us on our asses. It’s absurd, basically, what Miguel Cabrera has done, and can do.

The in-contention Indians were dealt a difficult blow when Corey Kluber landed on the disabled list with a finger injury. Kluber’s a good pitcher, see, and in-contention teams need good pitchers, and the Indians had to turn to prospect Danny Salazar on Wednesday night. Wednesday, Salazar made his second big-league appearance and start, facing the Tigers for the first time. Meaning he was facing Miguel Cabrera for the first time. Interesting things happened.

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Last week, Jeff Sullivan wrote about Atlanta Braves third baseman Chris Johnson. The article addressed the 28-year-old’s surprisingly stellar season, which has him leading the National League in hitting with a .338 average. More notable is the fact Johnson has the fourth-highest BABIP [.364] in history among players with at least 1,500 plate appearances.

What does Johnson think about his BABIP notoriety? I asked him that question when the Braves visited Philadelphia this past weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

In the beginning, there was Jose Molina. For real though, he’s really old. Molina hung around, and then baseball was invented, and then people figured out how to measure catcher pitch-framing, and then, initially, Molina really shined. Molina’s numbers blew everyone else’s out of the water, and so Molina became something of a cult favorite, and so on and so forth. You know how this story has gone. You know how Molina has become sort of popular, and you know how Molina is playing a lot for a contending team. Molina’s still really great at framing. It’s probably what he’s most great at.

Over time, I myself started to champion Jonathan Lucroy. Not because I thought Lucroy was better than Molina, but because I thought the two were roughly equivalent, and Lucroy didn’t get enough attention or respect. It seems to me Lucroy is one of baseball’s more underrated all-around players, and even still this year, Lucroy has been helping the Brewers’ pitching staff suck just a little less than it might otherwise. Lucroy’s still good, of course. Molina’s still good, of course. One doesn’t simply forget how to frame. But I was surprised when I took a peek at the 2013 pitch-framing leaderboards.

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This post is analysis free. It’s just a list followed by amazement. Here are the best hitters (by wRC+) through their age-21 season, all time.

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Every couple of months, I like to write a post highlighting some data from the Past Calendar Year split on our leaderboards. It’s one of my favorite tools on FanGraphs, giving us a look at how a player has done over a rolling full-season window. It’s a better way to look at recent performance than just season to date, and gives us a larger sample while still focusing mostly on what a player has done in his last ~162 games or so.

So, here are some random statistical tidbits from data accumulated from August 6th, 2012 to August 5th, 2013, with the minimum number of plate appearances set to 400 to include some interesting guys who have missed time due to injuries, as well as expand the number of starting catchers in the pool.

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So much of what we do is try to separate the signal from the noise. That is, a lot of what we do is investigate whether what we’re looking at, statistically, is real. We’re always chasing evaluations of a player’s true talent because we want to know what that player’s going to do. We want to know how his team is going to do because we think we want to know the future. As a group, we’re not horrible, but we’re not very good. There are biases that we have, there are things we don’t know and there’s the matter of players being humans and humans being all change-y. So often, we end up having to throw up our hands and say, “Welp.” Firm conclusions are hard to come by because firm conclusions are almost impossible to reach.

The greatest problem and the greatest solution is sample size. The rule of thumb is the smaller the sample of data, the greater the error bars around the actual signal. It follows, then, that the greater the sample of data, the smaller the error, assuming the players aren’t changing too much. If you observe one characteristic in one year, then that’s meaningful. If you observe it in three or four or five years, then that’s a lot more meaningful.  You’ve got signal that drowns out the noise. Which  brings us to Mark Buehrle and the Blue Jays.

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Winning streaks are fun, but they are usually gone just as quickly as they come. The Dodgers’ road winning streak, however, is nearing a month in length. It is now tied for the third-longest road winning streak in history, and a sweep of the Cardinals this week will give them the record outright. Since the record was established in 1917 and tied just once, in 1984, that is a pretty cool feat. Getting win #17 might be tough, as the matchup is Ricky Nolasco vs. Shelby Miller, but whether or not they get the record, it’s been a fun stretch of Dodgers baseball, and one that has put them firmly back in the pennant race. As such, I thought we could look back at some of the more important moments of the streak today. Read the rest of this entry »

St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran!

I would say congratulations, but this probably isn’t the kind of award you want to win. So, let’s just skip the festivities and skip right to the recap, shall we?

In last night’s game between the Dodgers and Cardinals, Los Angeles held a 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the 7th inning. Zack Greinke was pitching well, but he’d thrown 93 pitches and after facing a pinch-hitter for Adam Wainwright, was going to have to roll through the top of the batting order for the fourth time. This is danger territory, the type of spot where rallies are frequent and leads are often blown. Pitchers are less effective as they get deeper into the game and hitters perform better against a pitcher they’ve faced multiple times that day. The recipe for a comeback was in place.

And Greinke really hurt himself by walking the light-hitting Adron Chambers, who had pinch-hit for Wainwright leading off the inning. That walk took six pitches, and ended with Greinke throwing three straight out of the zone to put Chambers on first base. This brought up Matt Carpenter, the Cardinals All-Star second baseman, and the beginning of the best part of St. Louis’ offensive attack.

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Monday night in Washington, the Braves beat Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals by a 3-2 score. The beginning of the Nationals’ MLB.com game recap reads so casually you almost skip right over the astonishing part and miss the absurdity. Quote:

WASHINGTON — The Nationals entered Monday night with nine chances remaining to cut directly into the Braves’ 12 1/2-game lead in the National League East. They wasted the first of those chances in the opener of a three-game series, as Justin Upton’s go-ahead solo home run in the eighth inning lifted Atlanta to a 3-2 victory.

Braves in first, check. Nationals with chances left, check. Nationals with a blown chance, check. Twelve and a half games. Wait. Now thirteen and a half games. Because the Braves won. The number is inserted as if the gap isn’t completely ridiculous. The number is inserted as if Nationals fans ought to be holding out hope.

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