The truer category of "Belles", at least by name, are the players who are having good seasons without anyone knowing. This can be because their bad start has clouded perceptions, and is hurt by the fact that these player don’t pop up in statistical leader categories until much later in the season. I’ve chosen to…
Maybe They’ll Take Bernie? The Brewers are hovering around the .400 mark, spending a second season in a lame-duck ballpark and a ninth season far, far from contention of any kind. Even a bad team usually has one or two bright lights that make watching them worthwhile, and the Brewers are no exception. Closer Bob…
A longstanding blind spot in the mainstream media is that a player who starts very hot or very cold will have his season perceived that way no matter what kind of performance follows. The obvious reason is the reliance on counting stats; a ten-homer, 30-RBI April can embed you in the league leaderboards for most…
Luis Castillo is enjoying a breakout season. The Marlins’ second baseman, still just 24 years old, is hitting .351 with 39 walks in 50 games for a stellar .461 OBP. That’s sixth in the majors and the highest OBP by a leadoff hitter. In fact, no second baseman has had a higher OBP in a…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Activated RHP Tim Belcher from the DL; placed LHP Scott Schoeneweis on the 15-day DL (strained rib cage). [6/16] Mike Scioscia has gotten a lot of credit for some things, like his communication skills, his confidence in Ben Molina and how he’s handled his young starting pitchers. With the lone exception of an…
The decision to allow professional baseball players to compete in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia brought with it a real chance that we, the greatest nation on earth, would be able to put on a basketball-style thrashing exhibition of what capitalism does for competition and athletic development. Purity of competition hasn’t been part of…
The Texas Rangers’ bullpen has a new take on an old saying this year: You scratch my back…and I’ll stab you in the back. In last Thursday’s game against the Orioles, the Rangers’ Jeff Zimmerman relieved Francisco Cordero in the seventh inning with the bases loaded, one out and the dangerous Albert Belle at the…
The Strike Zone Not that I care about increased offense (I love baseball all the same), but no one in baseball looks at the strike zone, or how it is called. It’s obvious some umpires have a more liberal strike zone than others, and I was wondering if any of you know of any empirical…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Activated RHP Mark Petkovsek from the DL; optioned RHP Eric Weaver to Edmonton. [6/12] This roster exchange illustrates how even tried and true stats like ERA don’t really mean much in certain situations. Both Eric Weaver (6.75) and Mark Petkovsek (7.13) have lousy ERAs, but in each case that doesn’t tell you much…
Here are the 2000 performances of three pitchers: G IP ERA BB/SO BA/ OBP/ SLG SNWAR Pitcher A 10 50.1 4.47 31/48 .254/.363/.477 0.21 Pitcher B 13 73.1 5.28 36/60 .299/.352/.503 0.03 Pitcher C 7 17.2 10.70 8/10 .360/.408/.507 -0.14 Pitcher A has been better than Pitcher B, while Pitcher C has pitched like an…
One of the arguments for the case that the quality of baseball is better now than ever before is that pitchers are hitting worse, relative to the league, than they ever have. Because pitchers reach the major leagues for reasons independent of their hitting ability, the assumption is that the quality of their hitting should…
Big Mouth For most of the past decade, the Atlanta Braves have been about two things: winning, and winning quietly. The Braves made a postseason appearance an event as unremarkable as a Pedro Martinez shutout, a Felix Martinez rabbit punch or a security violation at Los Alamos; it’s almost more interesting when it doesn’t happen….
One of my stranger quirks is a fondness for seeing things pushed into disarray, for speculating about the answer to the question, "What happens if…?" Not in a dangerous way, mind you, but in real simple, basic, harmless ways. So the plan to have the Yankees and Mets make up Sunday’s rainout as part of…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Placed RHP Kent Bottenfield on the 15-day DL (shoulder tendinitis); recalled RHP Lou Pote from Edmonton. [6/8] Kent Bottenfield isn’t expected to miss more than two weeks. While he hasn’t pitched like the "18-game winner" the Angels claimed they’d gotten for Jim Edmonds, he also hasn’t pitched much differently from how he pitched…
The performance from last night that really caught my eye was Eric Milton‘s win over the Oakland A’s. Milton allowed two runs and struck out 11 over seven innings. Since a disastrous outing May 15 against the Mariners, Milton has an ERA of 1.13 in five starts and 32 innings, with 35 strikeouts and just…
Two years ago, when we first introduced Pitcher Abuse Points, pitch counts were still shrouded in a veil of mystery. They were available, mind you, but they were squirreled away at the bottom of box scores, and rarely ventured from their hiding place to appear in game summaries or in televised accounts of the game….