Ben and Sam banter about Mike Trout and answer listener emails about trading draft picks and divisions, saving failing franchises, limiting pitchers, and more.
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Before the start of Saturday’s game between Louisiana State and Auburn, the SEC Network revisited several decisive plays from the previous night’s contest (won 3-2 by LSU) between those same clubs. Present in a disproportionately high number of those clips was LSU junior shortstop — and possible top-10 draft selection this June — Alex Bregman.
On the one hand, this isn’t surprising: as the (maybe) predictive stats reveal, Bregman is among the SEC’s top-10 hitters. Notably, though, none of the footage depicted Bregman’s hitting — but rather only his fielding — exploits from that same game.
The purpose of this post is (first) to steal the aforementioned footage from the SEC Network and then (second) to disseminate it to the FanGraphs readership so that they might experience undue optimism regarding the future of the Pastime.
Here, first of all, is Bregman making a play from the hole:
You had, probably, heard of Arquimedes Caminero before. This is because his full name is Arquimedes Euclides Caminero, and that speaks for itself. His existence as a baseballer was something of a curiosity, but that was more or less the extent of it. However much you knew about Caminero, you probably knew next to nothing about his actual talent. In January, he was designated for assignment by the Marlins. Some days later, he was acquired by the Pirates for cash considerations. He was added to the spring-training pile of guys competing for a major-league bullpen spot. These are the transactions you ignore, and you’re usually justified in doing so. Most of the time, the Camineros of the world remain the Camineros, only a little bit older every year.
And to be fair, it’s April 14. It’s been two and a half months since the Marlins gave Caminero up, so it’s not like we can know the rest of his career. But, in February, I polled the audience about pitching coaches, and Pirates fans liked theirs the most. Big fans of Ray Searage, those Pirates people. Searage has developed a reputation for getting the most out of troubled live arms, and based on early indications, with Caminero, Searage can count for himself another unlikely win.
Location: Geneva, Ill.
Description:
Operator will be responsible for running TrackMan system at the Single-A Kane County Cougars affiliate during each home game. This position is available from April until mid-September.
Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve spoken about Mookie Betts a few times recently in these digital pages, highlighting what we might expect out of him given his age and tools, and looking at the validity of some of the comparisons to a young Andrew McCutchen. And why not: despite a batting line in the opening week that might not wow us at first glance, he’s been a walking highlight reel since spring training with his sneaky power, base running, and defense in centerfield.
Monday only added to the hype, as he did this in the top of the first inning on a Bryce Harper would-be home run:
Yesterday, against the Pirates, Anthony Gose finished 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. He has, so far, struck out nine times in 23 plate appearances. Let’s talk about why he’s possibly better.
Through his first three opportunities in the bigs, Gose came to the plate more than 600 times, and he managed a .285 wOBA. That’s a bad wOBA — the sort of wOBA acceptable only from a pinch-runner or defensive specialist. For 2015, our own projections peg him for a .292 wOBA, which is technically better, but ranked with Shane Robinson and Aaron Hicks. It’s a perfectly sensible projection; it matches what Gose has done, allowing for a little improvement from the 24-year-old. But there’s something projections can’t account for as they analyze the history: what if a hitter changes his swing?
Yesterday, the Marlins called up Carter Capps from the minors, and Capps went on to make his season debut in last night’s game against the Braves. He pitched well, getting all three batters he faced out, one of them by strikeout. But a reliever getting called up and throwing a scoreless inning isn’t worthy of a post, so you know there has to be more to the story. And there is, because here’s what Carter Capps throwing the ball looks like.
legal pitch or nah? pic.twitter.com/sdNI4dXrky
— nick pants (@nick_pants) April 14, 2015
lol pic.twitter.com/mxSOdNGQbk
— nick pants (@nick_pants) April 14, 2015
| 12:18 |
: I’m here, lets chat
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| 12:19 |
: just kidding just got called again. wait one minute!
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| 12:24 |
: ok now i’m really back
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| 12:25 |
Should cubs bring up Russell with Bryant next week? Do you think he is ready? |
| 12:25 |
: No idea what the plan is there, but if the only consideration was service time (it isn’t) then next week would work.
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| 12:25 |
How surprised/concerned are you by the Mets skipping Molina, Rosario, and Urena over Low-A to High-A? |
What follows does not constitute the most rigorous of statistical analyses. Rather, it’s designed to serve as a nearly responsible shorthand for people who, like the author, have considerably more enthusiasm for than actual knowledge of the collegiate game — a shorthand means, that is, towards detecting which players have produced the most excellent performances of the college season.
As in the original edition of this same thing, what I’ve done is utilize principles introduced by Chris Mitchell on forecasting future major-league performance with minor-league stats.
We rightfully spill a lot of ink here chronicling the exploits of the game’s best pitchers; the Clayton Kershaws, the Felix Hernandezes, etc.. We also tip our collective hat towards pitchers with the “wow” factor, from Chris Sale To Stephen Strasburg to Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez. All that said, who do you think was the AL’s top contact manager last season? It wasn’t Hernandez, or Sale, or even Garrett Richards who paced the circuit in that category for much of the season. It was the Astros’ Dallas Keuchel, and two starts into the 2015 season, the 27-year-old lefthander has quickly set out to prove that it wasn’t a fluke. Read the rest of this entry »
