Something you might not have heard from the past few days is that Micah Owings became a free agent. Owings opted out of his contract with the Washington Nationals, and the Nats granted him his release. Something you probably did hear from the last few days is that Casper Wells pitched in relief. Wells wasn’t the only recent-days position player on the mound, but Wells didn’t just pitch — Wells looked good. Or, all right, and good for an outfielder. The standards are quite a bit different, because only pitchers are trained to be pitchers.

In the ninth inning of a blowout between the White Sox and the Indians, Wells retired three of four batters. Mike Aviles popped out, Drew Stubbs walked, Asdrubal Cabrera whiffed and Jason Kipnis lined out to the track. Wells was the only White Sox pitcher who didn’t allow a hit, which isn’t to say he didn’t get a little lucky with the Kipnis drive. Still, what got people talking was Wells’ style. He threw hard, and he also mixed in an offspeed pitch with which Cabrera was neatly put away. Read the rest of this entry »

According to PITCH/fx, umpires weren’t giving Josh Outman the benefit of a doubt in 2011. If their called-strike data is accurate, only 65.3% of pitches the lefthander threw in the strike zone went in his favor. A remarkable 34.7% of would-be-strikes were called balls. He was among the most-squeezed pitchers in baseball that season.

Outman holds no grudges against umpires’ judgment. The 28-year-old recognizes they have a difficult job, and not all of them will interpret the strike zone in exactly the same way. Umpires aren’t machines, and in Outman’s opinion, that’s just the way it should be.

Outman — currently pitching out of the bullpen for the Colorado Rockies — discussed the strike zone, and its interpretation, on a recent visit to Fenway Park. Read the rest of this entry »

With the lack of high quality pitchers on the trade block, the Brewers have made it known that Yovani Gallardo could be available for the right offer. Since Gallardo is only 27-years-old and under team control through 2015, he has the potential to bring back a more significant piece to help the Brewers rebuild than the rent-a-veteran types that other clubs are shopping. However, there’s one small problem; Gallardo is doing his best to scare off any clubs who might have seen him as an answer to their rotation problems.

In his last two starts, Gallardo has allowed 13 runs while pitching only seven innings, and those clunkers came against the Cubs and Nationals, neither of whom are known for their ferocious offensive attacks. It’s not wise to decide that a player is not useful based on a couple of recent poor performances, but Gallardo has been trending the wrong way for a while now.

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Entering play yesterday, there were four catchers among the top 30 position players in WAR. Three of them should come as no surprise: Buster Posey, Joe Mauer and Yadier Molina. The fourth might be a bit of a surprise, though. Well, at least it might be if you hadn’t read the title of this article. Which, I’m guessing you did. That’s right, it’s Russell Martin.

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New York City  hosts this year’s All-Star festivities, just five years after hosting the 2008 summer classic. The Mets are in charge this year, with the All-Star Game, Home Run Derby, Futures Game and All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game all taking place at CitiField. Five years ago, Yankee Stadium was the site for these activities in its last year of existence. In 2009, the Yankees moved across the street to the new Yankee Stadium.

Everything, it seems, is more expensive in New York City — and tickets for the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby are no exception. Tickets for this year’s game range from $195 to $715, according to Major League Baseball. In 2008, the range was $150 to $725. That’s a nearly 33% increase for the least expensive ticket, with a slight decrease at the upper end. By comparison, ticket prices for last year’s All-Star Game in Kansas City ranged from $125 to $400.

The economy’s certainly picked up since 2008, which may have contributed to the ticket price increase. There’s also the issue of supply and demand. Yankee Stadium could fit more than 56,000 fans. CitiField’s capacity, including standing room only, is only 45,000. Not every seat in the ballpark is for sale, either. MLB uses quite a few seats for TV and corporate sponsors and players get seats for their friends and family. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine, for a second, that Major League Baseball had an automated strike zone, and there weren’t any bugs in the system. Imagine that the zone were specifically defined, changing consistently for each hitter, such that there couldn’t ever be any dispute. The zone would be perfect, and any given pitch would be either a definite strike or a definite ball. What you have imagined doesn’t exist. Instead, we have human brains doing everything, and sometimes human brains fall for magic tricks and infomercials. Umpires make mistakes, and because of that, any pitch could conceivably be called either way. There’s always some probability, however small, that a bad pitch might be called a strike, or that a good pitch might be called a ball. This is the way it is, and for now the rate of mistakes is low enough that we haven’t had a bloody revolt.

Because there are mistakes, there is a spectrum of mistakes, with some being the most understandable and some being the most wrong. The most wrong strike-zone call would be a call with the greatest difference between the actual call and what the call should’ve been. Imagine a fastball down the middle. If it’s taken, and called a ball, that would be a big mistake on the umpire’s part. With all this in mind, the month of June is over, so I thought we’d take a look at the month’s most wrong ball call. In part out of curiosity; in part to see what we can learn. Get ready for a little Edwin Jackson.

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J.B. Shuck is the type of player the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim need. Whether he is the type of player the Houston Astros could use is another question. Eight months ago, the answer — in the opinion of the Astros’ front office — was no. They released the 26-year-old outfielder in November.

Houston’s sixth-round pick in 2008, Shuck has emerged as a valuable contributor in his new environs. A veritable no-name on a star-studded Angels’ roster, he is providing energy and solid OBP skills in a part-time role. Despite a recent 2 for 16 skid, the former Ohio State Buckeye is hitting .288/.341/.362.

Shuck was surprised the Astros let him go, and pleased the Angels came calling.

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Not a whole lot of people have been paying attention to the Marlins. Now, this is typically the case, but the Marlins have been off the radar for months. People suspected they’d be bad, then they came out and were bad, and that was it, that was confirmation of beliefs. So maybe you didn’t notice, but since May 31, the Marlins have posted the National League’s second-best record. It’s good to have a healthy Giancarlo Stanton. By overall record, the Marlins have managed to catch up to the Astros. And they’ve narrowed the gap between themselves and the Brewers to a slim three games.

Considering how those teams were viewed before the year, this is a bit of a surprise, and it’s mostly because the Brewers have been a disaster. In every case of significant over- and under-performance, there will be a variety of contributing factors, as no one player can make that much of a difference. Baseball is a game of little things adding up, and lots has added up to lead the Brewers to 32-48. But one problem in particular has been bigger than the others. One problem has really allowed the Brewers to sink to the depths.

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In the past I’ve written on a handful of occasions about how sometimes I like to just get lost playing with Barry Bonds‘ statistics. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate Bonds’ performances at the time — it’s that I think it can take years to appreciate what he did fully. One could make it his life’s pursuit to arrive at a true understanding and appreciation of Bonds’ statistical record. There were good players, and there were great players, and then there was Barry Bonds, who occupied his own level. Sure, maybe he only got up there with the help of a biochemical jetpack, but lots of people were using the machinery and couldn’t get far off the ground. If you just want to look at numbers, Bonds’ are the best to look at, because they’re straight-up absurd.

Given what Bonds accomplished, then, one has to be careful not to be too casual about drawing comparisons. There is no more flattering offensive comp, so few will ever exceed the threshold of acceptability. But Chris Davis is, if nothing else, giving it his best try. What follows is a comparison between Davis and Bonds, and the frightening thing is I don’t think it’s a stretch. This isn’t a thing one notes lightly.

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A month ago, I wrote that it was time to take the Pirates seriously, as their 33-20 record was a strong enough start to put them squarely in the playoff mix, even if we didn’t think they were going to keep playing like a .622 team going forward. Well, since that post was published, the Pirates have gone 18-10, which translates into a .642 winning percentage. Rather than beginning their regression to the mean, they’ve gotten better.

So, now, it’s July 1st and the Pittsburgh Pirates have the best record in baseball. They have a two game in the NL Central and a 10 game lead over the Washington Nationals for the second wild card. By pretty much any objective measure you want to use, it is now likely that the Pirates are going to make the postseason this year. At this point, wondering whether or not they’ll stay in contention is something of an outdated question; now, the real query now is just how good is this Pirates team?

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