Jeremy Barfield pitched on the final day of May. He did so effectively, but only out of necessity. The 28-year-old outfielder’s current club, the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs, had run out of available pitchers in the second game of a doubleheader. Moving from right field to the mound for innings 11, 12, and 13, Barfield allowed just two hits — one of them a home run — and logged three strikeouts.

It wasn’t his first time toeing the rubber. In 2014 — his seventh professional season — Barfield made 25 mostly reluctant relief appearances in the Oakland organization. The following year, he threw two innings for Colorado’s Triple-A affiliate.

Barfield doesn’t like pitching. What he likes is hitting, which he’s done with mixed results since the A’s took him in the eighth round of the 2008 draft out of San Jacinto Junior College. But while questions about his bat led to a temporary position switch a few years ago, the son of former All-Star outfielder Jesse Barfield is now on the upswing. Last year he logged a .916 OPS and swatted 27 home runs with the Sugarland Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League. Since signing a minor-league deal with the Red Sox few weeks ago, he’s slashed .318/.333/.636 and gone yard four times in 45 Double-A plate appearances.

Barfield talked about his journey, which includes a tenuous relationship with pitching, prior to a recent game.

———

Barfield on his self-identity and his temporary conversion: “I hit, man. That’s what I do. The A’s experimented with me on the mound, but that wasn’t my choice. The situation I was in… there was just no opportunity for me to get regular at-bats in Triple-A. I got buried on the depth chart and basically got forced into pitching. I didn’t want to do it. I still don’t want to. It’s something I’m capable of doing, but it’s not what I’m meant to do.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve talked (a lot, maybe) about lifting the ball more here, and so far the discussion has revolved around hands, legs, and intent — the mechanics of the swing, more or less. There’s another way to lift the ball better, though, one that hasn’t been addressed here: swinging at better pitches. That’s what Kevin Pillar has focused on, and his story offers another look into the effort to hit the ball over the shift.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The Minnesota Twins remain among the season’s early surprises, as they still reside in first place in an AL Central Division that includes a heavy division favorite and reigning AL champion in the Cleveland Indians.

There are a number of reasons the Twins are where they are atop the division. They have improved offensively from a 95 wRC+ club a year ago, to a 101 mark this season. Miguel Sano is the loudest reason for that — literally, as a loquacious presence in the clubhouse and also as owner of the most violent contact in the league. A more selective Sano is mashing, and the public seems to recognize this: the 24-year-old leads All-Star balloting at third base. In a world with a lame Mike Trout, Sano is in the MVP discussion, as well. Max Kepler and Robbie Grossman are raking, and while Joe Mauer remains a shell of what he was, he has posted a .359 on-base mark.

Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric forefather Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.

How are they calculated? Haphazardly, is how. An explanation of the components and formulae which produce these NERD scores is available here. All objections to the numbers here are probably justified, on account of how this entire endeavor is absurd.

Most Highly Rated Game
Boston at New York NL | 19:05 ET
Price (12.0 IP, 99 xFIP-) vs. Pineda (64.2 IP, 79 xFIP-)
The Yankees have recorded the top BaseRuns record in the majors not, as has frequently been the case in the past, on the strength of aging relics but rather on promising young players.

Regard, the club’s top-five players by WAR this year, featuring four players aged 27 or younger:

This evening, the team’s strong corps of position players — which currently ranks fourth in the majors by WAR — is complemented by Michael Pineda. Still a couple years shy of 30 himself, Pineda continues to control the strike zone like few other pitchers in the league.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Boston Radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2017 MLB draft is going to kick off early next week. What do I know about the MLB draft? Nothing! What can I tell you about which teams are good drafters? Very little! I don’t really know what might count as my specific field of expertise, but I know some fields that definitely *aren’t*, and the draft is one of them. You and I, we’re on the same level. Unless you read about the draft a lot, in which case, you’re the smarter one here.

I can’t tell you the first thing about how the draft is going to go. I don’t know which picks might seem risky, and which picks might seem safe. The best I can do for draft-related content is analyze results. Why don’t we take a few minutes to review those? Who has drafted well? Who hasn’t? There, we can have some ideas, if we allow the numbers to be the guide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Scooter Gennett and Cubs infield positioning, follow up on a Nelson Cruz question, and answer listener emails about defining “homegrown,” home-run league leaders, Liam Hendriks’ charity pledge, an official-scoring decision, the 40/40 club, the Cubs’ reputation, tracking warm-up pitches, the error-prone A’s, how to allocate extra runs, resting players, a baseball prophecy, the mysterious Sam Dyson, and more.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Subscribe: RSS

There’s not a soul out there that thought the 2017 Brewers would be as good as the 2017 Cubs. There’s not a soul out there that thinks the 2017 Brewers will be as good as the 2017 Cubs. And yet, the 2017 Brewers have been as good as the 2017 Cubs, at least by wins and losses, which are ultimately the only numbers that matter. The Cubs have three more wins than defeats. The Brewers can say the same of themselves. The Cubs have been billed as an active dynasty. The Brewers have been rebuilding. I’ll be damned. We’ll all be damned.

One key to understanding what’s going on: Before the start of the season, we ran our annual positional power rankings, and the Brewers rotation slotted in at 25th place. By actual WAR to this point, that same Brewers rotation ranks in seventh place. A certain amount of credit ought to go to Chase Anderson, who’s exceeding expectations. But he’s not exceeding them quite as much as Jimmy Nelson. In Nelson, it looks like the Brewers might have an ace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Between Scooter Gennett’s four-homer game and a Max Scherzer start during which the right-hander racked up 11 strikeouts through his first four innings (thanks, in part, to a new toy), the country might have missed another remarkable feat on a major-league playing surface last night — namely, Boston reliever Joe Kelly hitting 104 mph in a plate appearance against Aaron Judge.

Judge, to his credit, fouled the pitch off.

But the important information is conveyed by this portion of the screen:

Yes, there have been issues with Statcast’s velocity readings this year. The final pitch speed, tracked by the Doppler radar component of Statcast, was later revised to 102.2 mph. Still, it now stands as the fastest thrown by a major-league pitcher this season, and it was the fastest of Kelly’s career, according to PITCHf/x and Statcast data.

It’s also the second time Kelly has hit 102.2 mph this season: he also reached that mark against Anthony Rizzo on April 28, according to Statcast.

Read the rest of this entry »