Yes, I know I promised more on the "walk gap," but that’s going to have to wait a couple of days. I’ll be able to do the legwork over the weekend and have more on the topic Monday. What I want to write about today is the baseball team I’ll be watching in a few…
Sometimes, readers make this job much easier. Here’s an email from Cris Enestvedt, regarding the stadium situation in Minnesota. You should be covering the MN situation if you’re into seeing owners get stiff-armed. A few years ago a referendum in St Paul went down 58% to 42%, but in this session a couple of new…
This week’s question was sent in by Andrea Trento: We all saw Barry Bonds’s ridiculous weekend, but lost in his home-run barrage has been the fact that he has seven singles so far this year. That’s 22 home runs, 10 doubles, and seven singles. His isolated slugging is .593, thanks to an .898 slugging percentage…
One of the things we’re always yammering about is control of the strike zone. We evaluate players based on their on-base percentage and walk rate and pitchers by their strikeout-to-walk ratio. We emphasize–some would say overemphasize–plate discipline for hitters and control for pitchers when we talk about minor leaguers, and often tout players for no…
Before getting into this week’s column, I would like to make a pair of comments regarding last week’s feature on the amazing Ichiro Suzuki: I stated that, assuming Ichiro could continue to get hits in 95% of his games, that his chances of fashioning a 57-game hitting streak were extremely high. I did not mean…
Yes, I know I promised more on the "walk gap," but that’s going to have to wait a couple of days. I’ll be able to do the legwork over the weekend and have more on the topic Monday. What I want to write about today is the baseball team I’ll be watching in a few…
Joe Kennedy is a left-handed starter in the Devil Rays system. He has been incredibly successful throughout his minor-league career, and was recently promoted to Triple-A Durham from Double-A Orlando. At Orlando, Kennedy posted a ridiculous 0.19 ERA, with 52 strikeouts, three walks, and 29 hits in 47 innings over seven starts. Joe was kind…
TUESDAYS WITH RICKEY "I accept it as respect. You’re trying to boo Rickey to get his attention. You’re paying attention to me. You’re talking to me." —Rickey Henderson, Padres outfielder, on hearing boos from Mets fans in his return to New York "I didn’t know what to expect, but a lot of the fans were…
Completing the extended tour of performances to date, here’s a glance at Double-A and below. The Erie SeaWolves are giving Tigers fans a lot of reasons for hope. They’re tearing apart the Eastern League, leading it in runs, BA, walks, and OBP, and are in middle of the pack in ERA. Shortstop prospect Omar Infante,…
Yesterday, Joe Sheehan wrote about the talents of Ichiro Suzuki. Today, I want to talk about how those talents have translated into some truly historic performances. Let’s start with one of Jayson Stark’s favorite facts, that Ichiro has already had a 15-game hitting streak and now has an active 21-game hitting streak, both in the…
I’m not a particularly great baseball analyst. I’m constantly fascinated and amazed by how little we really know about the game, and the limitations inherent in any analysis of the game, be it evaluation of performance data or by observation. I tend to get caught up in the problems with our tools, and the poor…
Here’s a look around the minor leagues, similar to what I did for the AL and NL last week. I’ll focus mainly on Triple-A today, then the rest of the minors tomorrow. (Honest.) Alfonso Soriano has gotten a lot of attention for his play, and Tino Martinez has managed to be adequate so far, but…