Category: Baseball
Shohei Ohtani Poised to Make History with Triple Crown Win
Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports Shohei Ohtani has a tendency to make absurd things happen. When he came over to the United States, some were skeptical that his offense would hold up as well as his pitching. Then, he came over and did just fine. Whether it’s being a two-time MVP as a two-way player or…
Pirates Lead Off Strong with Paul’s Performance
Welcome back to Top of the Order Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love. After an interminable wait for Pittsburgh fans (read: under 10 months), the Pirates on Wednesday finally announced they…
Keaton Winn: From Small Town Kid to Big Time Splitter in Baseball
Keaton Winn is a rare big league pitcher, and not just because he’s the only one who grew up in Ollie, Iowa, with a population of 201 in the 2020 census. The 26-year-old San Francisco Giants right-hander’s primary pitch is a splitter, and by a significant margin. Through seven starts this season, Winn’s usage breakdown…
Acknowledging the Remarkable Performances of Small-Sample Superstars in Baseball
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports We are now deep enough into the 2024 regular season that many of the initial surprises and outliers have leveled out. Mookie Betts is leading the league in position player WAR, Shohei Ohtani leads in wRC+, and Patrick Corbin is close to the top of the leaderboard in earned runs allowed….
Title: Adley Rutschman Shows Remarkable Growth in Recent Performance
Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports Yesterday, I wrote about at the mysterious disappearing zone rate of Mookie Betts. Today, we’ll be looking at a player who has seen his zone rate go in the other direction: Adley Rutschman. This season, opponents are throwing 51.7% of their pitches in the zone against Rutschman, up from 47.3%…
Varsho’s Struggle with Inside Pitches: A Hurdle to Overcome
Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports Daulton Varsho must have been disappointed. After a breakout 2022 season, he was traded to Toronto, a World Series contender in need of outfielders. However, he experienced a down year, the Jays were swept out of the Wild Card round, and his former team made a surprising run to the World…
Top 24 Prospects of the Los Angeles Angels
Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in…
The Impact of Clayton Kershaw’s Legacy: Analysis of Effectively Wild Episode 2162
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the Pirates calling up pitching prospect Paul Skenes, Mookie Betts’s defense at shortstop, Willson Contreras, catcher’s interference calls, catcher technique in a world of automated strike zones, reliever shuffling, Chase Anderson’s Phiten necklace, issues with amateur prospects being exploited, Ippei Mizuhara’s guilty plea, Shohei Ohtani’s WAR and two-way potential,…
The Washington Nationals Break Surprising Streak
(Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images) The Washington Nationals have been one of the more surprising teams through one month of the 2024 MLB season and are looking to end their streak of four consecutive last-place finishes in the NL East. Fans recently learned one stat that added some context to how long it has been…
Familiar Face Returns to Rangers in Trade Deal
(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) It’s always fun to see fan favorites return to their former teams, and it seems that you see it happen in baseball a little more often than you do in other sports. Texas Rangers fans will now get to experience this after the front office just made a nice…