Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, we ran what was originally planned as the final installment of a three–part series chronicling Lars Anderson’s experiences playing baseball in Japan. Thanks to popular demand — and Anderson’s interest in sharing additional stories — this is Part 4, with more to come.

———

Lars Anderson: “Birdman Bats’ fearless, peerless leader, Gary Malec made the long trek to visit me in Japan and temporarily join this bizarre circus. He flew into Osaka and took three trains in order to meet the team for our game in Kagawa. As the Fighting Dogs rolled up to the stadium on the team bus, I saw my good friend standing there wearing a Birdman t-shirt and board shirts with his trademark chicken legs sticking out. By his side was a box of bats and a suitcase. He was also sporting a huge, goofy grin. It was a cool moment.

“I met Gary through a mutual friend. We initially bonded over music, going so far as to start the band Daytime Nightlife with Gary’s little brother, Mark. Gary was hand-turning birch bats at the time, which I was obviously intrigued by. They were immaculate as well. As the years progressed and our friendship grew, we decided to use my experience and connections in baseball — and his passion of making baseball bats — to start a baseball bat company.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
In this, the year during which the all-time record for homers in an MLB season will be broken, there has been no shortage of dominant starting pitcher performances. From Clayton Kershaw to Max Scherzer in the NL to Chris Sale and Corey Kluber in the AL, true greatness has been on display. In this space not too long ago, I dug a little deeper into the exploits of Dodgers lefty Alex Wood. Today, let’s do the same in the AL and give Mariner lefty James Paxton his due.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was an eventful 24 hours for the Cleveland Indians outfield. On Tuesday, left fielder Michael Brantley sprained his ankle in a game against the Colorado Rockies, so Wednesday, the team put him on the disabled list and promptly traded for his replacement, Jay Bruce.

Because Bruce cleared waivers last week, the transaction was fairly straightforward. The Mets already knew they weren’t going to get much for him, as every team in baseball passed on taking on the remaining $4 million of his contract. So when Cleveland suddenly needed an outfielder, it represented a chance for the Mets to at least save some money while also freeing up playing time for Dominic Smith at first base. In exchange for assuming responsibility for the remainder of Bruce’s contract this year, Cleveland surrendered just RHP Ryder Ryan, a player so notable that this is the first time his name has ever been mentioned on the site.

Here’s what you need to know about Ryan: he was a 30th-round pick in the 2016 draft and is pitching in relief in A-ball as a 22-year-old. This trade isn’t exactly like the Indians claiming Bruce on waivers and the Mets just letting him go, but it’s basically that.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about live shows, bounced throws, the spread of “such is life,” stats displayed on baseball broadcasts, more strange fields, a Dan Haren rules question, and the best non-All-Star seasons, then answer more listener emails about the Angels and Albert Pujols, an odd Brian Dozier game, crooked numbers, Chris Tillman’s first-inning problems, the Dodgers’ World Series odds, Corey Kluber’s breaking-ball usage, and more.
Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

About a month ago, the notion of adding Yu Darvish seemed to be something of a luxury for the Dodgers. After all, not only had the Dodgers emerged as the best team in baseball, they had entered the season with the most pitching depth in the game.

But then Clayton Kershaw was sent to the DL, a place where Rich Hill, Scott Kazmir and Hyun-Jin Ryu have resided at times this season — and where they have been placed often throughout their careers. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the time when we talk about Mike Trout, we ask if anybody has ever done what he’s doing. Sometimes the answer is Mickey Mantle or Ty Cobb or Albert Pujols, but a lot of the time the answer is no and what Trout is doing is unprecedented. Today, we are asking two related questions:

1. Could Mike Trout deserve the American League Most Valuable Player Award despite missing 39 games earlier this season?
2. Does Mike Trout have a realistic chance to win MVP despite missing 39 games earlier this season?

While answering the second question might help prove the first through precedent, let’s restrict ourselves in the first part to the value Mike Trout provides. On Friday, I talked about Jose Altuve’s candidacy for MVP and showed this chart:

Things have already changed considerably. This is what the top of that chart looks like now.

So Trout is currently projected to be the AL position player WAR leader at the end of the season. If he keeps up his current pace and gets close to the the 200 more plate appearances he is projected for, he is going to get above 8 WAR. Trout is currently above a 200 wRC+, a number that hasn’t been reached since Barry Bonds and done by only nine players in non-strike seasons in history. He will actually have to exceed his projections in PAs to qualify for the batting title, as he is currently set to fall eight short. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Joey Votto hasn’t made a West Coast swing recently so we don’t have original words to annotate here, but he did say some interesting things to Zach Buchanan at The Cincinnati Enquirer this week, interesting particularly because he said that “This has been documented, so this is not anecdotal here,” and that sort of statement is like catnip around here. Let’s provide the documentation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few years, the A’s have had a high-end player problem, in that they haven’t had any. Jed Lowrie currently leads the team with +2.3 WAR; by comparison, the Astros have seven players who have already reached that mark, and that does not include their best pitcher, Dallas Keuchel, who spent two months on the DL. The team has developed some decent role players and decent enough everyday players, but they haven’t really had a franchise player since they traded Josh Donaldson to Toronto.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, I am starting to wonder if they’ve finally found a guy who at least has the potential to get to that level in the not too distant future. His name is Matt Chapman.

Read the rest of this entry »