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 »
FEATURES
Notable tenants: Pittsburgh Pirates – (MLB) 1970-2000; Pittsburgh Steelers – (NFL) 1970-2000
Date opened and first baseball game: July 16, 1970; Cincinnati Reds 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 2. The Pirates also lost to the Reds that year in the NLCS, three games to zero.
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 »
When the Mets lost on Sunday night to end the World Series, a few players watched the Royals celebrate a bit from the dugout and then, I presume, slowly moped on into the clubhouse. I… Read more »
Earlier this week, Banished to the Pen asked Effectively Wild listeners to take part in a World Series prediction poll, doubling as a contest for those so inclined, based on Sky Kalkman’s annual ’32 Predictions’… Read more »
The Kansas City Royals and New York Mets are this year’s participants in the World Series. Interestingly enough, this is the first Fall Classic since the expansion era began in 1961 to not feature one of… 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 »
Royals fan Matt Jackson and Mets fan Seth Rubin join Ryan Sullivan to discuss their teams’ seasons so far, and look ahead to the World Series matchup.
The 2015 MLB playoffs are continuing their scheduled march toward the World Series summit in the usual fashion, but the excitement surrounding playoff baseball has not ascended in quite such a steady fashion. Unless you… 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 – Fri, 10/9 at LA Game 2 – Sat, 10/10 at LA Game 3 – Mon, 10/12 at NY Game 4 – Tue, 10/13 at NY (if necessary) Game 5 – Thu, 10/15 at LA (if necessary)… Read more »
Writers Julien Assouline & Rob Mains join Ryan Sullivan to recap the Wild Card games and look ahead to each of the four Division Series matchups: Chi/StL, Tex/Tor, Hou/KC, and NY/LA.
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 »
Schedule: Game 1 – Thu, 10/8 at Toronto Game 2 – Fri, 10/9 at Toronto Game 3 – Sun, 10/11 at Texas Game 4 – Mon, 10/12 at Texas (if necessary) Game 5 – Wed, 10/14… 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.
Special guest Tim Livingston joins Ryan Sullivan to talk about the Sonoma Stompers, working with Ben & Sam, getting into the announcing business, and local independent wrestling.
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.
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?
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 »
One hundred at-bats is a long time in baseball. Has anyone ever failed to record more than a single hit over such a span?
Last week, I took a look at defensive shifts and how players could possibly fight back by understanding game theory. We used bunt probability research conducted by Tom Tango to give us a better idea… Read more »
Barring a rule change outlawing them, it seems defensive shifts are here to stay. In fact, teams are using them increasingly and becoming more efficient at them in the process. This is not a good… Read more »
The future is now in Houston. After losing an average of 108 games over three seasons in 2011-2013, the Astros took a big leap forward last year going 70-92. The pre-season consensus, including here at Banished… Read more »
As July wraps up and the All-Star break has come and gone, the Pittsburgh Pirates are firing on all cylinders after starting the season a little slow. Two games into the second half and the… Read more »
Let’s get this out of the way: the A’s have been bad in close games, but their peripheral numbers suggest they’re better than their record. We all know that. The struggles the A’s have had… Read more »
