Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Sunday, September 25. Comment of the week: The Freddie Freeman‘s batting average over the past 30 days is better than the two worst OPSs over the past… Read more »
“Pitch” debuted Thursday night to some pretty poor ratings, which perhaps isn’t surprising: fictional baseball will always lose to real football. But for those of us 4 million-plus folks who did tune in to the debut of trailblazing female pitcher Ginny Baker, what did we see? A lot of good material and some predictably predictable… Read more »
FOX’s “Pitch” debuts tonight and will follow the big-league trials and travails of one fictional Ginny Baker, a “beautiful, tough and gifted athlete (who) is vaulted into instant fame when she’s called up by the San Diego Padres to make her Major League debut,” as FOX’s PR arm puts it. First off, kudos to FOX’s crack… Read more »
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Sunday, September 18. Comment of the week: First, I apologize for missing last week. I was with a friend who’d had a knee replacement. In the healthcare… Read more »
After an 11-year professional career including pitching 41 games in the Major Leagues, Paul Menhart transitioned to the coaching ranks. He spent nine seasons in the Washington Nationals’ organization as a pitching coach at all levels of the minors before being named as the Minor League Pitching Coordinator in 2015. In that role, the 47-year-old… Read more »
Nick Strangis and Tim Livingston join Brandon Lee to talk about making it to independent league baseball, signature player moves in MLB, and alternate ways to change up the Wild Card format.
Byron Buxton is probably one of the most hyped prospects to come down the pike in quite a while. It was certainly a struggle for Buxton when he was (quite possibly prematurely) promoted to the major leagues to make his debut on June 14, 2015. Buxton struggled right off the bat, going 2 for his… Read more »
This week on an NL Central Podcast, Eric Roseberry, Alex Crisafulli, and Brandon Lee magically/conveniently/unintentionally scheduled a recording time to coincide with the ending of Kyle Hendricks’s ultimately failed no-hit bid, which, upon its breakup, Alex declared the event “[his] Super Bowl.” They also discuss Seung Hwan Oh injury trutherism, the timeless Alfredo Simon, being… Read more »
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Monday, September 5. Comment of the week: No, really, you can’t. Here at Banished to the Pen, we are nothing if not proper dressers. As for baseball:… Read more »
On the latest episode of an NL Central Podcast, Alex Crisafulli, Ross Bukouricz, and Brandon Lee discuss the current state of their teams (Cardinals, Brewers, and Cubs respectively) and revisit the concept of the Brewers’ “Timeless Ticket.” The guys also talk about season tickets (including some non-NL Central and non-MLB teams), and reveal their favorite September baseball memories. The episode closes with an NL Cy Young trivia question.
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Sunday, August 28. Comment of the week: As the title implies, the Yankee rookie has had himself a nice start to his career. Over in the National League,… Read more »
I love caps. I love flat-billed caps, loud caps, classic caps, oddly colored caps, throwback caps, caps that teams only wore one time, commemorative caps, snapbacks, strapbacks, fitteds, any. I love ’em. So when I saw via the Effectively Wild Facebook Group that there’s a sale at Lids for $10 MLB hats (word broke in the EW facebook group… Read more »
Yankees rookie catcher Gary Sanchez just played in his 20th major league game, in which he failed to homer. Come on, Gary, get it together. Nonetheless, Sanchez homered in six of his first 20 career games, blasting eight in total, which seems decent; great, even. Your browser does not support iframes. If you’ve actually watched,… Read more »
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Monday, August 22. Comment of the week: The top four hitters in the American League over the past 30 days, as measured by OPS, are three middle… Read more »
On the eve of SummerSlam 2016, Effectively Wild group members Eric Ferguson, Eric Hartman, Tim Livingston, and Ryan Sullivan forge an uneasy alliance to talk about what’s currently happening in WWE, NXT, and the indies.
Nick Koss and Rob Mains (also of Baseball Prospectus) join Ryan Sullivan to talk about their experience at the 2016 Saberseminar, and their favorite presenters and topics, including Dave Dombrowski, sports medicine, Effectively Wild live, Ryan Westmoreland, and the rise in home runs.
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Monday, August 15. Comment of the week: We’ve lapped the All Star break, so these numbers should be back to normal, with 26-28 game sample sizes. Not… Read more »
In the final part of our ’94 retrospective, we look at two things from that year that probably have little value in 2016: baseball cards, and Major League II. Also included is a brief anecdote from the set of Angels in the Outfield. In part 1, we went through the MLB season and Michael Jordan’s… Read more »
The Saberseminar (aka Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball) is an annual conference held over a weekend in Boston featuring a full two-slate of sabermetric and analytic presentations. It draws analysts, teams, former players, writers, and fans interested in the science of the sport, with all proceeds going to charity. This is the third… Read more »
In the gaming portion of our revisit to 1994, we talk about the original 16-bit Griffey title, and break down the references used for the game’s fake player names. Then we take a brief look at the other games of that year. In part 1, we went through the events of the MLB season, and… Read more »
Previously, Banished to the Pen turned the clock back to 1988 in the first entry of our Throwbacks series. This time, we look back at 1994 — when Matt Williams chased 61, Tony Gwynn chased .400, and the Expos had MLB’s best record. That was before the dark times. Before the strike. Part 1 takes… Read more »
This weekend we’ll present a retrospective on the 1994 baseball season. But first, a look back on the infamous strike of that season, and what led up to it. How come there was a strike? I thought labor relations in baseball are pretty good. They are now. They weren’t then. The Major League Baseball… Read more »
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Sunday, August 7. Comment of the week: Billy Hamilton has 21 stolen bases over the past 30 days. There are only six players (other than Hamilton) with more than 21… Read more »
The Red Sox, enjoying their first winning season since 2013, are in the thick of the wide-open AL pennant race. With Dave Dombrowski (known to be active on the trade market) running the front office, the Red Sox entered July expected to be one of the most active teams on the trade market, with a… Read more »
Matt Jackson, Nick Strangis, and Ryan Sullivan recap of some of the moves leading up to the trade deadline, including Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs, Jonathan Lucroy to the Rangers, and the Yankees selling.
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the past 30 days of the 2016 regular season, through games of Sunday, July 31. Comment of the week: This is one of the times when the past 30 days coincides with the preceding month, so we can make… Read more »
In this episode of an NL Central Podcast, Eric Roseberry, Ross Bukouricz, and Brandon Lee discuss a variety of topics including but not limited to Ryan Braun wearing Ed Hardy shirts, the difference between J.J. Redick and Josh Reddick, the traveling Hall of Fame exhibit, and things from Canada. In addition, they discuss the trade… Read more »
An issue that always pops up during deadline season is team payroll space, or how much budget room a team has to add major league talent at the deadline to bolster a run to the playoffs. Selling teams don’t have to worry about this pesky number for their own organizations as the minor leaguers make… Read more »
During the All-Star break, we asked fans to answer two simple questions: “With regard to their favorite MLB team, how locked in are you and what’s your mood?” One hundred and twenty three baseball fans responded to our survey, crossing twenty six of the thirty fan bases. It may not be a scientifically significant sample, but… Read more »
Of all the accolades and accomplishments in Ken Griffey Jr.’s career, the most impressive might be this: In an era that may very well have contained both the best hitter and best pitcher in baseball history, Griffey stands out as the most important player of his generation. For someone who has for years touted Barry… Read more »
