One day I sat a dozen feet behind Maddux’s catcher as three Braves pitchers, all in a row, did their throwing sessions side-by-side. Lefty Steve Avery made his catcher’s glove explode with noise from his 95-mph fastball. His curve looked like it broke a foot-and-a-half. He was terrifying. Yet I could barely tell the difference…
On August 25, a bit of baseball history happened; only, hardly anyone noticed. The Red Sox were losing a blowout against the Orioles. To save an arm, first baseman Mitch Moreland pitched the top of the ninth inning. Hanley Ramirez took Moreland’s place at first base, replacing designated hitter Chris Young in the lineup. No…
To comb through the pitches Joey Votto saw in 2017 is to reevaluate how much can be done on purpose in half a second. After raising eyebrows with a swing-happy first couple weeks, Votto locked into an above-average zone-swing rate while chasing only 16.1 percent of the 1,377 pitches he saw that were deemed more…
1: as a Monday Morning Ten Six Pack Entry Sixto Sanchez, RHP, Lakewood Blue Claws (Philadelphia Phillies) “Sixto Sanchez was on various drafts of our 2017 Top 101” may end up the epitaph on my tombstone. I think he finally ended up getting bumped by Walker Buehler, and hey, that doesn’t look so bad right…
Mapping Cy Young By: Patrick Dubuque There is something grotesque about Cy Young’s statistics. I do not like to look at them. 453 innings pitched in 1892, a 35-10 record in 1895, a 0% home run rate in his age-43 season with the Naps in 1910. They’re reminders that baseball wasn’t really baseball, or it…
Joey Votto podría cambiar cómo entendemos el significado de ser disciplinado.