Carlos Gonzalez has been a very good hitter for quite a while now. Since 2009 (his first season in Colorado) through 2016, he was one of just 74 position players to accrue 4,000 plate appearances. Among those players, his 122 wRC+ ranked 26th.

As recently as last season, he was hitting the ball with authority, relative to his peers. In a February piece, Tony Blengino stated that his batted ball profile was one that “projects as a safely above average offensive ballplayer in any ballpark,” despite no longer being elite. That hasn’t been how Gonzalez’s season has played out, as he has looked like a shell of himself all season. Even in June, I was still hopeful. I said that I didn’t think Gonzalez had gone from “a .366 wOBA player to a .287 wOBA player overnight.”
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Last week, we ran Part 1 and Part 2 of what was planned to be a three-part series chronicling Lars Anderson’s experiences playing baseball in Japan. This is Part 3, and thanks to popular demand — and Anderson’s willingness to contribute more stories — it won’t be the final installment. We will hear more from the former big-league first baseman in the coming weeks.

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Corey Kluber has been really good for a quite some time.

He’s a Cy Young Award winner and has finished in the top 10 in voting for three straight years. He trails only Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale in wins above replacement since 2014, with 22.4 WAR.
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White Sox general manager Rick Hahn is receiving well-deserved plaudits for bold trades that have helped restock his club’s farm system. Yesterday, he shared a good story on Day One of this year’s Saber Seminar, in Boston. It features his longtime boss — executive vice president Kenny Williams — and a Venezuelan outfield prospect who failed to advance beyond Double-A.

“From time to time, you think you’re potentially getting away with something by picking out a guy out of low-A, or the DSL (Dominican Summer League) or rookie ball,” said Hahn. “Inevitably, the other GM will say to you, ‘That’s some good scouting. He’s under the radar, and our guys really like him.’ Whether that’s true or not, you get that a lot. When you get, ‘Ooh, that’s good scouting,’ it’s either A: good scouting, or B: the general manager never heard of that player and doesn’t want to reveal it.

“When we did the John Danks/Brandon McCarthy deal with the Texas Rangers (in December 2006) we were coming down to the final players, and I was at a holiday party. Kenny called me and said we could get the deal done, but we’d have to give up Paisano. I was like, ‘Really. Paisano, huh?’ He goes, ‘Yeah, what do you think?’ I take a minute, then say ‘Kenny, I’ve got to tell you I don’t know who the hell Paisano is.’ He goes, ‘Good, because neither do I.’ Read the rest of this entry »

In Effectively Wild’s second annual live recording at Saber Seminar, Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan talk to former major league pitcher (and current Red Sox pitching development analyst) Dave Bush about his new job in the Red Sox front office, how he’s using data to develop minor league pitchers, his experience coaching in China, and his success against Barry Bonds. Then they call up three current or former pitchers from the minors or high-level indy leagues (Dan Blewett, Dave Fischer, and Kevin Vance) to discuss how they will (or did) know when it’s time to stop playing, their experience in international leagues, pitching to (and being or not being bitter about) Tim Tebow, having Tommy John surgery, and the attitudes of the former major leaguers with whom they’ve played.

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Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Yesterday, we rolled out the latest update of my batted ball-based park factors, through the All Star break. Today, we’ll delve a bit more into some park-specific details.

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If you’ve been to Saber Seminar in the past, you might have also attended our meetup on the eve of Saber Seminar. The annual conference is fantastic, and we can’t get enough, so we like to extend things out to the night before for everyone who is able to make it into town early. You should join us! This year, the date in question is Friday, Aug. 4. That would be today.
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