TwitterI’m not going to lie. It has been a weird season. A global pandemic, sixty games, multiple COVID-19 disruptions, rule changes so hastily made that Calvin and Hobbes would be proud…you get the picture. Normally,… Read more »
Posts by Darius Austin
The Nationals are World Series champions and the offseason is here. Before we start looking ahead to the spring, however, it’s time to look back…to the spring. That’s right, no-one who made a preseason win… Read more »
Welcome to the fifth edition of Banished to the Pen’s annual win prediction and projection extravaganza. In the name of making everyone accountable for predictions they usually didn’t want to make, as well as keeping… Read more »
[Ed. note: This preview was split three ways with John LaLoggia handling the fungoes, while Brandon Lee sought some answers on projection systems from Darius Austin] A song to play while reading about the Cubs:… Read more »
A song to play while you’re reading about the Rays: “Roll With It” by Oasis It is eight years since Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2% was published and over a decade since the remarkable 2008… Read more »
With the regular season over, it’s the most exciting time of the year: we get to find out which predictions or projections from our preseason contestants were the most accurate. Apparently there are some playoffs… Read more »
The Oakland A’s have been doing a lot of remarkable things. Whether it’s Matt Chapman‘s otherworldly defensive play at third base, Khris Davis leading the league in home runs, or the phenomenal production of a… Read more »
Andrew Benintendi has hit at every possible opportunity. He batted .564 as a high school senior in Ohio, becoming the National High School Player of the Year. After a respectable but unspectacular start to his… Read more »
There is no small degree of absurdity to predictions, particularly when it comes to providing a single win total for teams that play a 162-game schedule. This absurdity is frequently noted by Ben Lindbergh as… Read more »
One hundred and six million dollars. That’s how much the Colorado Rockies invested in free agent relievers this offseason. That’s over six times what they spent on position players. This extreme approach will, unavoidably, dominate… Read more »
On the heels of last year’s wildly successful (and chaotic) Cubs preview, Brandon Lee, Dan Epstein, and Darius Austin brought back the Facebook chat preview to discuss the 2018 Seattle Mariners. Darius: I think the… Read more »
Towards the end of the fourth Die Hard movie, an aging John McClane faces off against an F-35 Lightning fighter jet whilst driving a cumbersome truck. Naturally, McClane wins this battle. While the movie was an… Read more »
In 2016, baseball set a new record low for intentional walks per game. That broke the previous record, set in 2015, which had broken the previous record, set in 2014, which had…you get the idea…. Read more »
Brandon Lee and Alex Crisafulli talk about Mike Dunn, Mike Dunne, Stephen Piscotty, Yu Darvish, Cubs vs Rays, “this season” vs “last season,” favorite 2017 moments, and SNES sports games, then cap things off.
Every player who makes the major leagues is good at baseball. Sometimes, that’s not immediately apparent because of the presence of other players. Take Barry Bonds, for instance. Whatever else you might think about Bonds,… Read more »
For the third year running, our review of preseason predictions and projections is back, crushing all the hopes of those baseball writers who never wanted to make predictions in the first place and would rather… Read more »
There was a time when Andrew Cashner had the kind of potential that baseball fans can really dream on. He had a high-nineties fastball, great promise with his changeup and slider, and a high ground… Read more »
The podcast returns from a hiatus as Darius Austin, Daniel Epstein, and Brandon Lee discuss FiveThirtyEight’s fan survey and Statcast’s Sprint Speed metric, hold a draft of trade candidates, and review the Jeff Sullivan era… Read more »
The new Statcast Sprint Speed metric is now available to the public and the leaderboard is both fun to look at and about as revelatory as many trade rumour tweets. At the top is Billy… Read more »
Earlier this week, I examined the teams which had the biggest differences between their preseason predictions & projections and their performance to date. To follow up on those outliers, below is every team’s actual winning… Read more »
This is the third season of BttP’s prediction and projection tracking, and once again we’re bringing you our All-Star Break check-up on the teams that have most confounded the preseason expectations. Below are three teams… Read more »
This post originally appeared on UK-based baseball site Bat Flips and Nerds. The podcast referenced here is now also available over at Blog Talk Radio. For more UK-based baseball content, follow @batflips_nerds. It’s the question… Read more »
It helps to be fast to steal bases, but stolen bases certainly aren’t all about speed. So much of the steal is about reading the pitcher and knowing when to run. As Vince Coleman told… Read more »
Let’s talk about MLB’s ERA leader. He has an ERA of 1.01, a half-run better than any other pitcher. He’s striking out almost five batters for every walk. All but one of his seven starts… Read more »
Ryan Schimpf might be the most extreme fly-ball hitter the major leagues have ever seen. Can he really be a productive MLB regular?
For a few days this April, it seemed as though a combined no-hitter was perpetually in progress. The Marlins came close to one twice in a matter of days, with Dan Straily and Wei-Yin Chen leaving… Read more »
After months of ill-advised attempts to predict the future, the 2017 season is already here. We can soon get on with the business of actual baseball, and all those reluctant predictions by prognosticators – such… Read more »
“Mr Beck looked around with a wild light in his eye for somebody to hit. He couldn’t see any specific target so he threw perhaps the best fast ball he had thrown this season up… Read more »
The first part of our daily series of season previews. Brandon Lee and Darius Austin collaborated on this edition. What can we ask about the Padres? We know the rotation might be one of… Read more »
In the midst of a BttP staff discussion on the merits of Field of Dreams, I found myself on an IMDB list of ‘baseball movies’ (in the traditional sense, not the Sam Miller definition). The… Read more »
