[ad_1] Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) this week. I’m not sure if this is by design or simply a scheduling coincidence, but this week was full of compelling matchups between current rivals. The Cubs and Cardinals squared off. So did the Yankees and Orioles. The Guardians and Mariners…
[ad_1] Willie Mays was considered by many as the gold standard of baseball. Whether he was the greatest player of all time or simply one of the best is a topic of debate. However, it is widely accepted that Mays was the greatest all-around player the game has ever seen, excelling at the plate, on…
[ad_1] Athletes like Elly De La Cruz can skew our perception of reality. His powerful arm makes most shortstops look like they throw with a wet noodle. His 99th-percentile sprint speed makes most other baserunners look like they’re running on sand. His tall frame, which our website somehow lists at 6-foot-2, makes that guy on…
[ad_1] You’re surely familiar with the trope of aging sluggers who sell out for pull-side power because they can’t catch up to the fastball like they used to. They need to start gearing up to swing earlier, forcing them to guess what pitch is coming instead of reacting to what they see. They hope that…
[ad_1] Josh Rojas Turning Left – A Defensive Transformation At first glance, Josh Rojas and Derek Zoolander don’t have a lot in common. Rojas is a third baseman, while Zoolander is a fictional male model. Rojas is from Arizona, while Zoolander is from an unnamed coal mining town in Appalachia. They have different jobs, different…
[ad_1] Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. Last week, I was feeling a bit under the weather, which gave me the perfect excuse to sit back and watch some baseball. Despite not feeling my best, I was treated to some exciting series and matchups in the world…
[ad_1] Luke Raley, a big, strong outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, stands at 6-foot-4 and weighs 235 pounds. He hails from Ohio and has a background in tree-cutting. Known for his massive arm strength, he has consistently achieved high exit velocities in recent seasons. Former teammates describe him as a “big ball of muscle” with…
[ad_1] Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports Over the past month, smart people have been deciphering the relationship between swing length and pitch location in MLB’s new bat tracking data. If you’re looking at raw data, it’s hard to know whether someone has a long swing because they like inside pitches (Isaac Paredes) or because their…
[ad_1] Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports Surely this is just some piece of cosmic performance art. If you’re looking for proof that we live in a simulation, Isaac Paredes’ spray chart is strong evidence. Sure, you’ve heard of pull hitters. What about only-right-at-the-foul-pole hitters, though? Paredes is doing the same thing he always seems to….
[ad_1] Baseball’s middle class is pretty large this year Just 10 teams have records over .500 right now, while nine teams are within three games of a playoff berth — and that doesn’t include the four teams that are currently tied for the final National League Wild Card spot. Because the standings are so compressed,…
