Read the full article...

On Wednesday, the St. Paul Pioneer Press published a piece by Mike Berardino about how the Twins—well, more like one full-time employee of the Twins—are starting to explore sabermetrics. It's worth a read. The article won't leave you with the sense that the Twins are anywhere close to the cutting edge, relative to teams that aren't the Phillies, but at least they're not opposed to the idea of incorporating statistics into their decision making.

Read the full article...

Several months after Yadier Molina made his major-league debut, we panned his career prospects in Baseball Prospectus 2005. “He’s every bit a Molina,” we said, “like his brothers in Anaheim: admirable defensive skills, inadequate bat.” Molina was 21 at the time, and catchers tend to peak later than players at other positions, so we acknowledged that there was “hope for improvement.” But not much improvement, evidently: “Expect Matheny levels of production with maybe a handful more homers.” Matheny levels of production are pretty terrible, even with a handful more homers. Given that pessimistic offensive projection, the comment’s conclusion didn’t come as a shock: “best suited to a backup role.”

Well, we nailed the part about the defensive skills. The rest seems silly now. But it didn’t start to look silly for a few seasons, and it took a few seasons more for it to become outright wrong. Through his age-27 season, Yadier’s career TAv (.237) was lower than his brother Jose’s through the same age (albeit in many more plate appearances).

Read the full article...

Read the full article...

Read the full article...

It's been a weekend of weird plays. On Friday night, Jean Segura did something so strange we literally didn't have a way to score it. And on Saturday, Rays center fielder Desmond Jennings caught a Coco Crisp fly ball, then doubled Eric Sogard off first. All by himself.

Read the full article...

When the Phillies offered Yuniesky Betancourt an invitation to spring training, we wondered why a team would give even a non-guaranteed contract to a player whose career stats suggested he was without any upside. When Betancourt hit .446/.450/.625 in spring training and landed a major-league contract with Milwaukee, we wondered A) why teams allow themselves to be seduced by spring statistics and B) what it is about Betancourt that makes teams who’ve already seen him firsthand for full seasons decide to bring him back for more. When we last saw Betancourt in the big leagues, he was getting released by the Royals. It was fair to wonder why he’d be any better at age 31 than he was during his replacement-level prime.

Read the full article...

Before we get to the rankings and GIFs, a brief detour. In the comments section of Sam Miller’s article about Hector Sanchez’s poor framing in Tim Lincecum’s first start of the season, reader “jdeich” floated the possibility of a link between good receiving skills and a selective approach at the plate:

Read the full article...

Read the full article...

Brett Gardner’s approach at the plate used to be simple: bend at the knees, let lots of balls (and strikes) go by, and wait until he walked. Pitchers can’t always throw strikes, even when they’re trying to, especially when the batter doesn’t have a big zone. Gardner consistently made pitchers pay for poor control with plate appearances like this one, from April 29, 2011:

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

Read the full article...