Last time, I asked about the Rule 5 Draft, and you answered by going over the 40-man roster. Are we done with that? Not quite. Why not? Are there any exceptions? Can a team have a player… Read more »
Posts by Rob Mains
Baseball’s Rule 5 Draft was on Thursday, December 10. What’s a Rule 5 Draft? Matt Nekrich went over it last year. I’ll revisit it here. Not to be a total jerk about it, but it’s hard… Read more »
In a somewhat surprising development, the Pirates did not offer a 2016 contract to first baseman Pedro Alvarez by Wednesday night’s 11:59 PM deadline. He is now a free agent. The reasons this is surprising are… Read more »
In the world of sports, the catcher position is kind of weird. Catchers start each play out of bounds, facing a different direction than their teammates. On a more micro level, baseball’s most important in-bounds/out-of-bounds determination, the… Read more »
In this article I wrote for FanGraphs Community, I noted, in the summer of 2014, that batters were being hit by pitches at a near-record pace. Here is a graph showing the number of plate appearances… Read more »
The Gold Glove awards get a lot of grief. It’s deserved, to a degree. The comments section of pretty much any post about the Gold Gloves goes only about three deep before somebody brings up Rafael… Read more »
So, what’s a Qualifying Offer? It’s a one-year contract offer teams can make to their players who have filed for free agency. This year, a qualifying offer is $15.8 million for the 2016 season. Why would… Read more »
Once the New York Yankees were eliminated in the American League wild card game, it was clear that one of the themes of this postseason was going to be redemption. Of the eight teams in… Read more »
I discovered this while playing around with the amazing, indispensable Baseball Savant: There have been just nine pitching staffs in the eight-year PITCHf/x era that have thrown over 3,000 pitches at 95 miles per hour… Read more »
Last month, I wrote about the two leagues, noting that The American League, perceived as being bad this year, was actually a good deal better than the National League overall, and The perception of the… Read more »
As many of you know, Joe Sheehan is a Baseball Prospectus alumni who now writes for Sports Illustrated. He also has his own e-mail newsletter, which I highly recommend. For $29.95, you get a full… Read more »
Schedule: Game 1 – Friday, 10/9 6:30 PM EDT at St. Louis Game 2 – Saturday, 10/10 5:30 PM EDT at St. Louis Game 3 – Monday, 10/12 at Chicago Game 4 – Tuesday, 10/13 at Chicago (if necessary)… Read more »
Schedule: Game 1 – Thu, 10/8 at KC Game 2 – Fri, 10/9 at KC Game 3 – Sun, 10/11 at Houston Game 4 – Mon, 10/12 at Houston (if necessary) Game 5 – Wed,… Read more »
Here is an explanation of this weekly feature. This entry lists the best and worst for the last 30 days of the 2015 regular season, through games of Sunday, October 4. Comment of the week:… Read more »
Comment of the week: Here’s where the five American League pitchers with the best ERAs over the past 30 days were at the beginning of the season: Suspended, Class AA, Majors, Disabled list, Class AA.
Comments of the week: The five American League pitchers with the best ERAs over the past 30 days had an average won-lost record of 8-7 last year, and the top two are rookies. The five American League pitchers with the worst ERAs over the past 30 days had an average record of 16-9 last year.
Comments of the week: (1) Toronto and Boston have the best and third-best records in the American League over the past 30 days. The reason is offense. The two teams have at least three of the top five hitters over the past 30 days in batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs, runs scored, and RBI.
As with every year, there have been storylines that are unique to the 2015 baseball season. The remarkable infusion of young talent to the game. The relevance of the Cubs and Astros after years of… Read more »
Comments of the week: (1) Take a look at the top three and bottom three in the American League at OPS. Couldn’t you easily imagine those lists being reversed at some point this season?
On April 21, the Pirates were leading the Cubs 8-6 when closer Mark Melancon entered the game to start the ninth inning. A single, double, walk, single, strikeout, and ground out later, the Cubs had… Read more »
In my career as a financial analyst, one of the repetitive jobs I performed was reviewing companies’ quarterly financials. While it was always important to see how companies performed relative to expectations, one quarter wasn’t… Read more »
