Newsletter: Saturday, June 16, 2012
MEDIA
Baseball Prospectus Day at the Big A
Joe Hamrahi - Staff: Geoff Young, Sam Miller, John Perrotto, Stephani Bee,
Jason Wojciechowski
Special Guests: Dan Evans (Former GM, agent and BP
Advisory Board member), Jason Martinez (MLB Depth Charts)
Baseball Ops: Matt
Klentak (Angels Assistant General Manager)
06-16 4:30 PM PST
NEW PREMIUM CONTENT
Daily Hit List
Friday, June 15
by Andrew Koo and Hudson Belinsky
At this point, the Cubs' season is about the little accomplishments.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17374
Future Shock Blog
Minor League Update: Games of June 14
by Kevin Goldstein
Trying to figure out Astros outfielder George Springer, and notes from around
the day in the minors.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17377
NEW FANTASY CONTENT
Weekly Planner
Week 12
by Paul Sporer
Another week, another round of two-start pitchers to consider.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17371
NEW BASIC CONTENT
BP Unfiltered
The Problem With DiMaggio
by R.J. Anderson
When common sense was an inefficiency.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17379
Tater Trot Tracker
Trot Times for June 14
by Larry Granillo
The tater trots for June 14: Adam Dunn and Jim Thome keep mashing home runs.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17378
BP Unfiltered
Willie Mays Has An Important Announcement About Blasting Caps (So Listen Up!)
by Sam Miller
This is just an important reminder from Willie Mays.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17376
Wezen-Ball
Matt Cain, Peanuts & "How Did the Other Team Feel?"
by Larry Granillo
Matt Cain's perfect game has me wondering about a lesson from a classic
"Peanuts" strip.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17375
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: JUNE 16
THE THURSDAY TAKEAWAY
As the Royals swept the Brewers out of Kauffman Stadium, one pitcher took home
two of the three victories. That pitcher is lefty reliever Tim Collins, who is
rapidly developing into one of the top bullpen arms in the American League.
The 22-year-old Collins struggled to rein in his walks last season, issuing 48
free passes in 67 innings as a rookie. He was tough to hit, though, holding
all opposing batters to a .216 average and pitching effectively against
right-handed hitters, who combined for a 582 OPS. Armed with a quality
fastball and outstanding curveball, Collins flashed his potential in 2011.
Now, he’s putting it all together.
After collecting two strikeouts in a scoreless top of the ninth last night,
Collins now owns 46 of them in 31 innings this season, good for fourth among
relievers, behind only Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, and Ernesto Frieri.
Perhaps more importantly, he has accomplished that while handing out only nine
unintentional walks. And Collins has done his best work versus righty batters,
fanning 30 of the 69 he has faced.
Though the 5-foot-7, 171-pound Collins has not received nearly as much press
as Chapman and Frieri, he has been impressively effective, emerging as a key
cog for manager Ned Yost. Now 27-34 and six games back in the AL Central, the
bullpen has been one of the few bright spots for the Royals, ranking seventh
in the league with a 2.83 ERA. Collins—who has collected four of the pen’s
nine victories and chipped in with a 2.03 ERA—has emerged as the staff’s ace.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR THIS WEEKEND
Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched relatively well in his return from Tommy John
surgery, allowing four runs in five innings to the Nationals on June 9, but
collecting eight strikeouts compared to only one walk. He gets an easier test
today in the series-opening Friday matinee at Wrigley Field (2:20 p.m. ET),
but must contend with Cubs starter Ryan Dempster, who has pitched 15 scoreless
innings to pick up his first two wins of the season in his past two starts.
***
The Nationals have passed their interleague test with flying colors so far,
breezing through their road trip to Boston and Toronto with a perfect 6-0
records. Now, they will return home to open a three-game series with their
first-place counterparts, the Yankees, who have also won six in a row. Gio
Gonzalez made five starts against Joe Girardi’s team while with the Athletics
and had little luck, going 1-4 with a 7.27 ERA and issuing 20 walks in just 26
innings over five starts. He will try to turn that around while squaring off
with Phil Hughes tonight (7:05 p.m. ET).
***
Is there anything better than Vin Scully broadcasting a brilliant pitchers
duel? We might get precisely that in game one of the Dodgers-White Sox series
in Los Angeles, where young Chris Sale will be up against the grizzled
veteran, Clayton Kershaw (7:10 p.m. ET). Sale has earned a win in each of his
last five trips to the mound, and Robin Ventura’s team is 7-1 in his starts
dating back to May 1.
***
Carlos Beltran went to the hospital with a severe stomach virus on Wednesday
night, just hours after hitting the game-winning home run. The 35-year-old
outfielder took last night off, but he should return sometime during the
Cardinals’ three-game weekend series against their intrastate rivals, the
Royals, who were also Beltran’s first major-league team. Beltran has been as
hot as ever of late, going 11-for-22 with four home runs and only one
strikeout over his last six games.
PODCASTS
BP PODCAST EPISODE 95: YOU'RE DRINKING DEER BLOOD IN A MINUTE
Kevin Goldstein and Jason Parks are joined by Jim Callis from Baseball America
to recap the MLB Draft. Later, hear the latest on the Jorge Soler sweepstakes
and the Pirates converting pitching prospect Stetson Allie into a position
player. This week's musical guest is The Ready Stance. As always, we hope you
enjoy.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17298
BP FANTASY PODCAST EPISODE 7: THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT SANDWICHES
We skip the emails this week as we answered all of them via reply and we
intended to make this our shortest podcast yet but failed miserably in doing
so. This week we talk about Melky Cabrera, Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Bourn,
Carlos Quentin, Daniel Nava, Dexter Fowler, Michael Saunders, Howie Kendrick,
Pedro Alvarez, Ichiro, Logan Morrison, Dayan Viciedo, Wade Miley, Barry Zito,
Jeremy Hellickson, Johan Santana, Brandon Morrow, Hiroki Kuroda, Madison
Bumgarner, Matt Garza, Matt Moore, Derek Lowe, Tim Lincecum, Yu Darvish, R.A.
Dickey, my big Tout Wars trade, Paul's favorite read of the week, Jason's
favorite read of the week, and an epic profanity-laced tirade by Paul about
the Tigers.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17301
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BASEBALL PROSPECTUS 2012 APP NOW AVAILABLE
At long last, the Baseball Prospectus 2012 annual app is now available for the
iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Follow your favorite MLB teams and players
throughout the season with Baseball Prospectus analysis that includes team
overviews, player assessments, detailed stats, and 2012 projections for over
2000 players. All of that and more for just $4.99 if you purchase it in the
next two weeks. For more information and to access the download page, click
the link below.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16776
BROOKS BASEBALL NOW AT BP
The outstanding PITCHf/x work of Dan Brooks, Harry Pavlidis, and co. is now
available through BP. For more details on the integration of Brooks Baseball,
see the post by Joe Hamrahi linked below:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16721
BALLPARK EVENT TICKETS NOW ON SALE
Join your favorite BP writers and industry insiders at our upcoming ballpark
events. For more information and to purchase tickets, click the links below.
June 16 at Angel Stadium:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16646
July 8 (All-Star Weekend) at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas
City:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17278
SUBMIT A QUESTION TO THE RESEARCH MAILBAG
Got a burning baseball question you want answered? Submit it via email to
Bradley Ankrom (bankrom@baseballprospectus.com) and we'll do our best to find
the answer. Our research staff will select its favorite questions from the
batch and feature them in the mailbag the following week.
PLAYOFF ODDS AVAILABLE DAILY
The season is underway, and our playoff odds report is now updated to account
for the double wild card. Check it out here:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/
BASEBALL PROSPECTUS ON FACEBOOK
Check out the Baseball Prospectus page on Facebook
at:
http://www.facebook.com/baseballprospectus
BASEBALL PROSPECTUS TWITTER FEED
Stay up to date on the latest articles, events, chats, authors and stats by
following @BaseballPro ( http://www.twitter.com/BaseballPro ) on Twitter for
updates throughout the day.
FOLLOW BP CONTRIBUTORS ON TWITTER
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Cee Angi @ceeangi (http://www.twitter.com/ceeangi)
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Tommy Bennett @tommy_bennett (http://www.twitter.com/tommy_bennett)
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Ken Funck @KenFunck (http://www.twitter.com/KenFunck)
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Larry Granillo @wezen_ball (http://www.twitter.com/wezen_ball)
Joe Hamrahi @jhamrahi (http://www.twitter.com/jhamrahi)
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Max Marchi @MarchiMax (http://www.twitter.com/MarchiMax)
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