Problem for baseball is that every pitcher now throws 150mph with a breaking ball that bends six feet, so taking away the rubber ball would really fuck up the balance...this isn’t a crazy offensive era overall, just one where every utility infielder can hit 25 out in a given year, and league-wide offense had gotten…

Yeah; stinginess is a problem in a lot of markets, but it’s also a reality that every team is reliant on badly underpaid talent, because the economics don’t work without it. The price per WAR in free agency seems to have fallen, but that’s to something like $8m/WAR. The AL’s second Wild Card winner last year, the A’s,…

Yeah; stinginess is a problem in a lot of markets, but it’s also a reality that every team is reliant on badly underpaid talent, because the economics don’t work without it. The price per WAR in free agency seems to have fallen, but that’s to something like $8m/WAR. The AL’s second Wild Card winner last year, the A’s,…

What teams are doing is entirely rational, and that’s the problem. It makes perfect sense to hedge rather than going nuts chasing a 10% chance at making a full divisional playoff round. And it makes perfect sense to covet years of team control, even if you’re a very good team, rather than trade years of production for…

The pitching coach — who takes a quick step to follow, and then just accepts that he is powerless to do anything more than watch (from a safe distance) — is all of us who have/had that friend.  

Portis’ value as a stretch 4 is also mitigated by the bit where most PFs are now capable of shooting threes, and are in the main quite a bit more mobile than they were in years past. His ability to play on the perimeter is hardly unique or game-changing, and most of the guys he’ll need to guard have the same skillset,…

While I was talking about hitting to the opposite field rather than bunting against the shift, players who have a modicum of ability directional bunting aren’t those that face extreme shifts, generally. It’s not as easy as people believe. Getting a bunt down against the shift succeeds somewhere in the 60% range...but…

This will take a big chunk of the risk away, and it’s acceptable for a pretty simple reason: the players really, really do not want to be maiming or killing fans with foul balls.

In this case, LF/RF would mean balls hit in the air exclusively, while oppo/pull would include grounders and low liners that have to evade the infielders. If I ran the numbers for balls hit to SS/3B vs balls hit to 2B/1B, I’d expect that lefties do better on the former...it’s just not enough to offset the bit where…

It really depends on how much power you’re giving up in the process. When it comes to opposite field hitting, teams generally don’t shift all that much in the outfield; as a result, the only balls in play that you’re really improving by hitting oppo are grounders, and on that score you’re better off working on hitting…

I have to be at work in less than five hours. I’m 90% sure that I wouldn’t be there either sober or on time if I go to sleep now, and I’m quite sure that it’ll suck if I merely pull an all-nighter. But if I drink a bit more (not a lot, mind, just enough to remain chipper) this might be doable. 

As a Raptors fan since the earliest days, let me say: this is weird. I don’t know what to make of this. We didn’t fail and that’s unnerving. 

It’s not just the deaths, it’s the number of life-altering injuries beyond those. In 20 years, between CART/Indy, there have been five killed, two paralyzed, a couple more with severe life-long injuries, a couple more that spent months in hospital. Indy has done its damnedest to make it safer...the problem is that…

As a decades-long Raptors fan: they absolutely did wilt in the playoffs. Losing to the Cavs was hardly a black mark on the franchise, but the team wasn’t losing in the fashion that the Rockets lose annually to the Warriors. With the exception of the ECF appearance, where they were mostly competent, they got destroyed.…

The guy Davis has replaced — Kevin Pillar — would be pretty high on the list. Pillar has had a solid career, but the combination of his defense, his baserunning (both good and bad), and that time he started a brawl and then got suspended for using a homophobic slur must place him in elite company.

It wasn’t the most exciting surprise sinking of the Astors; certainly doesn’t qualify as Titanic.

If you have signed a keeper that isn’t a complete nutter, you haven’t signed a keeper. You have merely signed a tall man with a keeper’s jersey. You should ask that man to give the jersey to a complete nutter, and then sign that guy. 

Jays already have the extra season of team control now. At this point, they’re legitimately just giving him a few days in AAA, mostly because it’ll allow him to make his debut at home. He’ll be with the big club no later than Friday of next week, unless his oblique acts up. 

Can’t BABIP if the ball isn’t in play, though. Even if Davis was at his career norm of .300ish on balls in the field, he’d be on a 9 for 65 stretch dating back to last year, because he’s striking out almost half the time. His xwOBA through Sunday was .201; for the sake of comparison, Stephen Strasburg (who isn’t…

My current car was put up for auction, for a simple reason: the previous owner had gotten an unusual (and frankly, inadvisable) special order on the interior scheme, with cream seats and grey/silver trim, and a white exterior. As such, it was something with much more of a fringe appeal, and as it was a Mazda 3, it’s…