Category: Baseball
Spencer’s Second Chance: A Baseball Analysis by FanGraphs
Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports It’s a familiar tale in baseball: a young, athletically gifted, hard-throwing, yet undersized college pitcher named Spencer is selected by the Braves after the first round of the draft. Despite primarily serving as a reliever in college, Atlanta transitions him into a starting role. With just over 20 starts in the…
Athlete’s Perspective: The Competitive Games We Are Forced to Sit Out
The NFL season kicks off tonight, with another game tomorrow, 13 more on Sunday, and a Monday Night Football matchup set to cap off the Week One slate. Millions will be tuning in, although not everyone will be able to watch their favorite team (or keep close tabs on their fantasy football squad). Among those…
Dodgers Offering Unique Cuisine in Tribute to Shohei Ohtani
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is on his way to becoming the first player in MLB history to put up 50 home runs and 50 steals in a season and is currently at 44 homers and 46 steals after becoming the fastest player ever to reach 40/40. His Dodgers…
White Sox Players Commit Costly Error in Tuesday’s Game
(Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) The Chicago White Sox continue to dig deeper and deeper in an effort to uncover new levels of futility the sport of baseball has never seen and now sit with a ghastly 31-109 record amidst a 12-game losing streak that has them threatening to set the MLB record for most…
Yankees’ Decision to Keep Jasson Domínguez in the Minors Could Have Consequences
Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports A year ago, the Yankees were battling to avoid their first losing season since 1992. With the arrival of Jasson Domínguez, a promising young center fielder known as “The Martian” for his impressive skills, they hoped for a bright future. However, Domínguez suffered an injury early on, leading to the acquisition…
It is a Historically Bad Idea to Underestimate Aaron Judge
Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports You might be a bit surprised to learn just how rare 3-0 counts are. As of Tuesday morning, there had been 155,045 plate appearances in the 2024 season, and just 5,852 of them, or 3.8%, had gone 3-0. That means that each team should expect to see a 3-0 count just…
Bryan Woo Displays Similar Movements to Zack Wheeler
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Podcasts hosted by athletes — I don’t know about all that. But I did enjoy a recent clip from Mookie Betts’ podcast where he was talking to Cal Raleigh, who was comparing Zack Wheeler — perhaps the best pitcher in baseball — to his batterymate Bryan Woo. “[Wheeler] is kind of…
Notable Soccer Stars Experience American Baseball for the First Time
The English language is full to overflowing with sailing idioms: Obvious ones, like “even-keeled,” and others, like “three square meals,” that hide in plain sight. And there’s a good reason. Our language originates from a nation of sailors. England’s global empire was built on, and maintained by, the strength of its navy and commercial shipping…
Potential Impact Players: How Injuries May Influence the Playoff Picture
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love. The long weekend gave me an opportunity to do a few things: (a) eat a whole bunch of food, (b) watch a whole bunch of baseball,…
Effectively Wild Episode 2212: Exploring Baseball in a Country with Double the Altitude of Coors Field
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss various baseball topics, including Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., and measuring power/speed excellence. They also talk about the struggles of the White Sox under Grady Sizemore, hippos, A-Rod’s relationships, double plates/bases, older hitters, player predictions, and more. Later, they speak with Matthew DeSantis and Ramon Riesgo of the Bhutan…