It seems like every year there is a story about how we’ll never see a 300 game winner again. This was a popular topic in the 1990’s, and we saw how that worked out as a number of pitchers reached the milestone. Take these stories with a grain of salt.
The MLB Network is showing the Phillies-Yankees game, although right now they are showing a tribute to George Steinbrenner.
Update: They were showing that at the stadium. Lots of great Yankees in attendance, Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry and Goose Gossage could be seen in the dugout. The family just came on the field to place flowers on the NY logo.
The five year look at PMR using an objective probabilistic model of range continues with rightfielders. Here is the data for the teams in right over the five year span:
| Team | In Play | Actual Outs | Predicted Outs | Actual DER | Predicted DER | Index |
| TEX | 17063 | 1816 | 1664.4 | 0.106 | 0.098 | 109.1 |
| ARI | 18222 | 1596 | 1486.0 | 0.088 | 0.082 | 107.4 |
| FLO | 15005 | 1744 | 1628.4 | 0.116 | 0.109 | 107.1 |
| CLE | 16448 | 1718 | 1623.7 | 0.104 | 0.099 | 105.8 |
| CIN | 19014 | 1859 | 1768.9 | 0.098 | 0.093 | 105.1 |
| SDN | 18477 | 1642 | 1565.8 | 0.089 | 0.085 | 104.9 |
| TOR | 15576 | 1522 | 1462.0 | 0.098 | 0.094 | 104.1 |
| SFN | 16350 | 1756 | 1692.9 | 0.107 | 0.104 | 103.7 |
| HOU | 18435 | 1702 | 1646.5 | 0.092 | 0.089 | 103.4 |
| WAS | 15208 | 1819 | 1767.7 | 0.120 | 0.116 | 102.9 |
| KCA | 18252 | 1767 | 1739.5 | 0.097 | 0.095 | 101.6 |
| MIN | 17388 | 1639 | 1617.1 | 0.094 | 0.093 | 101.4 |
| OAK | 14344 | 1705 | 1684.4 | 0.119 | 0.117 | 101.2 |
| PHI | 16848 | 1667 | 1653.6 | 0.099 | 0.098 | 100.8 |
| CHA | 14957 | 1592 | 1583.7 | 0.106 | 0.106 | 100.5 |
| BOS | 17028 | 1569 | 1561.2 | 0.092 | 0.092 | 100.5 |
| TBA | 14795 | 1697 | 1694.1 | 0.115 | 0.115 | 100.2 |
| NYA | 15578 | 1657 | 1653.8 | 0.106 | 0.106 | 100.2 |
| SLN | 19101 | 1590 | 1607.5 | 0.083 | 0.084 | 98.9 |
| LAN | 17788 | 1538 | 1563.4 | 0.086 | 0.088 | 98.4 |
| NYN | 14262 | 1637 | 1689.5 | 0.115 | 0.118 | 96.9 |
| MIL | 18218 | 1684 | 1749.2 | 0.092 | 0.096 | 96.3 |
| BAL | 17931 | 1674 | 1740.7 | 0.093 | 0.097 | 96.2 |
| ATL | 17318 | 1538 | 1606.5 | 0.089 | 0.093 | 95.7 |
| SEA | 17452 | 1657 | 1745.2 | 0.095 | 0.100 | 94.9 |
| ANA | 15609 | 1604 | 1691.5 | 0.103 | 0.108 | 94.8 |
| PIT | 18249 | 1650 | 1747.4 | 0.090 | 0.096 | 94.4 |
| CHN | 16072 | 1632 | 1733.3 | 0.102 | 0.108 | 94.2 |
| DET | 15483 | 1533 | 1645.3 | 0.099 | 0.106 | 93.2 |
| COL | 18078 | 1404 | 1536.7 | 0.078 | 0.085 | 91.4 |
A comparison of FanGraphs range runs shows that four of the top eight teams are shared between the two lists. The top teams on the objective PMR list tend to have younger outfielders:
| Fielder | In Play | Actual Outs | Predicted Outs | Actual DER | Predicted DER | Index |
| Nelson Cruz | 6996 | 809 | 706.4 | 0.116 | 0.101 | 114.5 |
| Alexis Rios | 8847 | 859 | 783.4 | 0.097 | 0.089 | 109.7 |
| Jay Bruce | 6701 | 686 | 629.4 | 0.102 | 0.094 | 109.0 |
| Randy Winn | 8227 | 940 | 867.5 | 0.114 | 0.105 | 108.4 |
| Justin Upton | 8906 | 799 | 738.7 | 0.090 | 0.083 | 108.2 |
| Nick Swisher | 5275 | 639 | 599.4 | 0.121 | 0.114 | 106.6 |
| Hunter Pence | 10667 | 1035 | 976.6 | 0.097 | 0.092 | 106.0 |
| Jeremy Hermida | 7305 | 843 | 797.4 | 0.115 | 0.109 | 105.7 |
| Shin-Soo Choo | 6720 | 702 | 664.2 | 0.104 | 0.099 | 105.7 |
| Carlos Quentin | 4297 | 417 | 397.1 | 0.097 | 0.092 | 105.0 |
| Ryan Ludwick | 8676 | 751 | 721.7 | 0.087 | 0.083 | 104.1 |
| Jayson Werth | 7953 | 828 | 798.4 | 0.104 | 0.100 | 103.7 |
| Gabe Gross | 4208 | 472 | 459.6 | 0.112 | 0.109 | 102.7 |
| Austin Kearns | 8814 | 1034 | 1008.4 | 0.117 | 0.114 | 102.5 |
| Jermaine Dye | 10036 | 1090 | 1067.6 | 0.109 | 0.106 | 102.1 |
| J.D. Drew | 12711 | 1157 | 1133.0 | 0.091 | 0.089 | 102.1 |
| Mark Teahen | 5593 | 553 | 544.8 | 0.099 | 0.097 | 101.5 |
| Brian Giles | 10894 | 900 | 908.1 | 0.083 | 0.083 | 99.1 |
| Kosuke Fukudome | 4981 | 515 | 521.4 | 0.103 | 0.105 | 98.8 |
| Ichiro Suzuki | 10925 | 1098 | 1116.5 | 0.101 | 0.102 | 98.3 |
| Ken Griffey | 5169 | 452 | 461.7 | 0.087 | 0.089 | 97.9 |
| Corey Hart | 11591 | 1081 | 1121.0 | 0.093 | 0.097 | 96.4 |
| Milton Bradley | 4013 | 437 | 455.1 | 0.109 | 0.113 | 96.0 |
| Vladimir Guerrero | 6460 | 670 | 697.8 | 0.104 | 0.108 | 96.0 |
| Michael Cuddyer | 10977 | 940 | 983.7 | 0.086 | 0.090 | 95.6 |
| Geoff Jenkins | 4295 | 388 | 406.2 | 0.090 | 0.095 | 95.5 |
| Nick Markakis | 16303 | 1503 | 1574.9 | 0.092 | 0.097 | 95.4 |
| Shawn Green | 4313 | 423 | 446.3 | 0.098 | 0.103 | 94.8 |
| Jeff Francoeur | 15257 | 1462 | 1541.6 | 0.096 | 0.101 | 94.8 |
| Andre Ethier | 9976 | 850 | 899.7 | 0.085 | 0.090 | 94.5 |
| Bobby Abreu | 13317 | 1294 | 1369.1 | 0.097 | 0.103 | 94.5 |
| Jose Guillen | 8014 | 747 | 791.7 | 0.093 | 0.099 | 94.4 |
| Xavier Nady | 6061 | 583 | 643.0 | 0.096 | 0.106 | 90.7 |
| Juan Encarnacion | 4275 | 344 | 380.6 | 0.080 | 0.089 | 90.4 |
| Brad Hawpe | 13340 | 1024 | 1144.4 | 0.077 | 0.086 | 89.5 |
| Magglio Ordonez | 10859 | 1022 | 1156.1 | 0.094 | 0.106 | 88.4 |
The bottom of the list does tend to be on the older side. I’m always surprised when Ichiro doesn’t do that well in PMR, especially in rightfield. However, he’s no longer a young man, so given average standing, it’s not bad at all. Range Runs likes Ichiro at lot better than objective PMR. Nelson Cruz, Randy Winn and Jay Bruce rate highly there, too, so there’s agreement as well.
At Baseball Analytics, I look at how Dexter Fowler is not getting the benefit of the doubt on called strikes.
Neftali Feliz figured out how to throw a change with the same arm action as his fastball:
“At times last year, he had a good breaking ball, but today he had really good arm action,” said Napoli, who was 0-for-4 with a walk and two strikeouts in five regular-season plateappearances againstFeliz while with the Los Angeles Angels. “Last year, we thought he slowed his arm up and gave it away a little. I couldn’t tell any difference in the arm speed today.”
The. Rangers wanted Feliz to develop another pitch before becoming a starter. Maybe that happened.
At Baseball Analytics, I look at hitters against Ted Lilly‘s fastball and how he gets in trouble when it loses velocity.
Joe Torre’s long rumored hire by MLB should take place tomorrow:
Major League Baseball is expected to announce tomorrow that longtime player and manager Joe Torre will be appointed to a major role in the commissioner’s office as the executive vice president for baseball operations.
In the new role, Torre would oversee on-field operations, making him one of the top executives at MLB’s offices in New York.
Congratulations to Joe. He’s an excellent personnel manager.
The Mets received a loan from Major League Baseball in October. The rumor is that it helped cover a liquidity problem caused by the Madoff scandal, but the Mets will just say they had a liquidity problem.
Ross Detwiler explains with video the adjustments he made to his mechanics this winter.
Ross Detwiler, having fully recovered from the hip surgery that derailed his 2010 season, has stood out this spring training. Pitchers have been limited to just bullpen sessions and live batting practice, but one Nationals officials said he’s looked like the best pitcher in the entire camp.
Next Friday and most of Saturday I’ll be attending the MIT-Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. The list of panels is now up. The baseball analytics panel will be the most interesting one to me, but I’d like your input on what other panels might be relevant to Baseball Musings readers. Let me know in the comments.
You can follow the conference on Twitter as well with the SSAC tag.
Adrian Beltre strained a calf, and will be out for about two weeks. What he was doing near a baby cow, I don’t know. 🙂
With any injury like this, better now than April 1. Still it has to be disappointing when you sign a player to a big contract and the first thing that happens is an injury.
Both Rob Neyer and MGL comment on the Angels use of sabermetrics. It appears the front office gets statistical input when making decisions, but Mike Scioscia isn’t crazy about the fielding metrics.
Reading all that led me to the question, do sabermetrics matter more to the manager or the front office? Most managers do a good job of finding the correct level of bunting and stealing based on the strength of the offense. We know lineups don’t matter that much. Most use spray charts for positioning defenders. Very few are going to sit a great player because some sub went 5 for 5 against a certain pitcher.
So I might contend that the use of numbers is much more important to the front office. They need to value a player correctly. They need to be able to distinguish skill from luck. The need to build a team with the right balance of offense, pitching and defense. If they give a major league manager a good team, very few will screw it up.
Jack Moore discusses Nyjer Morgan’s poor base stealing percentage:
EQSBR confirms our rule of thumb. Morgan has a total EQSBR of -5.09 runs for his career, including an abysmal -2.91 mark for the 2010 season, when Morgan stole 34 bases but was caught 17 times. A closer look at the Baseball Prospectus statistic report for 2010, however, shows 58 stolen base opportunities (SB_OPPS), not 51, as his 34 SBs plus 17 CSs would suggest. This reveals another black mark on Morgan’s running record: he was picked off seven times (PO – PCS under the Baserunning header) by opposing pitchers. Instead of 34 successes against 17 failures, that shifts Morgan’s record to 34 successes against 24 failures, an unacceptable mark which suggests that the Nationals would be better off with Morgan staying put.
Being fast isn’t good enough. A base stealer needs to pick his spots. Part of that is knowing the pitcher and catcher. I don’t know how much Morgan runs on his own. If he does, the coaching staff should reign him in. If the staff is already calling his steals, then the Nationals need a new coach.
Here’s a reason to keep an eye on the Rangers offense:
Remarked new Rangers hitting coach Thad Bosley on Wednesday: “I’m not a believer in working a pitcher to take a walk. I believe you’ve got to know the pitcher, and get a pitch you can drive. If you get an 0-0 pitch you can drive, you’ve got to jump on it. […] I’ve talked to Josh Hamilton about [his approach]. There were times when he was just pushing the ball to left field, when he could have been driving it out of the park. We believe that none of our hitters up to this point have had a career year. We see tremendous upside. We know what Josh Hamilton can do.”
Joey Matschulat at BBTIA correctly notes this may be spring training hot air. It’s not that he doesn’t want the team to walk, Thad likely wants the team to be aggressive on the right pitch. The great hitters seem to have the philosophy that they get one good pitch during a plate appearance, and it’s their job to jump on it. The difference between the great and not so great hitters is that the better ones lay off the other pitches. That leads to walks. As long as Thad doesn’t have them swinging at pitches outside the zone, it’s a perfectly good hitting philosophy.
At the Hardball Times, Max Marchi looks at games and stadium where PITCHf/x was off:
Nothing new here. We have been warned many times about the occasional miscalibrations of PITCHf/x. Thus, once again, think about it before using unadjusted data to point to an umpire’s ineptitude, or before coming to conclusions about allegedly modified pitching approaches.
Sportvision has been doing a terrific work in the past few years in tracking every major league pitch and we are really fortunate that it (and MLBAM) let us put our hands on that wealth of data. Thus, pointing at miscalibrations is not meant as criticizing their amazing work, but rather as a way to give something back.
Very nice work.
Theo Epstein says the Red Sox did not hire a private investigator to follow Carl Crawford:
“We simply had our scouts do a thorough job on his background and makeup, the way we do for all players of interest. I used a poor choice of words during a radio interview, which I regret, and unfortunately that made a story out of a non-story.
“We told Carl in Houston in November that we had gotten to know him pretty well, and that the more we discovered, the more we liked and respected him. We talked about it again yesterday, and I can assure you that he has no problem whatsoever with the Red Sox or with our approach during free agency.’’
Besides, Magnum would only work for the Tigers. 🙂
Bud Selig rejected a clever financing deal between the Dodgers and Fox.
What really grabs my attention is Bud Selig’s role here. Neither he nor Jamie McCourt would allow Frank to simply sell a 20-25% stake in the team to raise this kind of cash, and now the commissioner has prevented Frank from engaging in an interesting financing arrangement which would have had the potential to devalue the Dodgers if and when the club reaches the market. By putting the kibosh on this innovative TV-rights-as-collateral deal, Selig sure looks to be showing his hand: for a number of reasons, he’d have trouble simply forcing Frank McCourt out of baseball. But he can sure as heck make it uncomfortable for him to stay around.
Maybe Bud should just say to Frank, “Sell the team, you’re not welcome in the club anymore.”
Miguel Cabrera said all the right things at his news conference today. I hope he follows up with the right actions.
Beyond the Boxscore charts Bret Saberhagen’s up and down career using WAR. Sometimes, pitchers can appear to go up and down due to luck, but Bret did indeed have an inconsistent career.
This is a test of blogging from a Xoom.
Update: I went to Costco to see about buying a Xoom. The price is very good, however, it was tough to type (I’m sure I’d get used to it) but the All Categories section of my WordPress Dashboard did not show. The most used categories did, but the All Cats was blank. However, even without seeing, my touch picked one, which I just changed to something appropriate.
The pad was fast, and the display looked very good, but the categories are important to me, so I didn’t buy it.
The five year look at PMR using an objective probabilistic model of range continues with third baseman. Here is the data for the teams at third over the five year span:
| Team | In Play | Actual Outs | Predicted Outs | Actual DER | Predicted DER | Index |
| DET | 16601 | 2278 | 1985.8 | 0.137 | 0.120 | 114.7 |
| BOS | 15756 | 2127 | 1963.4 | 0.135 | 0.125 | 108.3 |
| BAL | 16429 | 2070 | 1965.7 | 0.126 | 0.120 | 105.3 |
| SEA | 17219 | 2155 | 2056.5 | 0.125 | 0.119 | 104.8 |
| WAS | 16758 | 2079 | 1994.8 | 0.124 | 0.119 | 104.2 |
| ANA | 15651 | 1882 | 1827.8 | 0.120 | 0.117 | 103.0 |
| TBA | 15762 | 1991 | 1934.9 | 0.126 | 0.123 | 102.9 |
| OAK | 16234 | 2040 | 1985.6 | 0.126 | 0.122 | 102.7 |
| SLN | 17200 | 2120 | 2066.4 | 0.123 | 0.120 | 102.6 |
| PIT | 16839 | 2200 | 2153.5 | 0.131 | 0.128 | 102.2 |
| LAN | 16161 | 2005 | 1986.0 | 0.124 | 0.123 | 101.0 |
| MIL | 16036 | 1954 | 1936.2 | 0.122 | 0.121 | 100.9 |
| SFN | 15375 | 1926 | 1911.8 | 0.125 | 0.124 | 100.7 |
| KCA | 16406 | 1892 | 1878.3 | 0.115 | 0.114 | 100.7 |
| PHI | 16533 | 2100 | 2104.9 | 0.127 | 0.127 | 99.8 |
| CIN | 16375 | 1895 | 1900.1 | 0.116 | 0.116 | 99.7 |
| CHN | 15218 | 1844 | 1866.0 | 0.121 | 0.123 | 98.8 |
| ATL | 16062 | 1875 | 1899.5 | 0.117 | 0.118 | 98.7 |
| MIN | 15919 | 1984 | 2020.2 | 0.125 | 0.127 | 98.2 |
| NYA | 15941 | 1859 | 1893.5 | 0.117 | 0.119 | 98.2 |
| NYN | 15839 | 1936 | 1990.1 | 0.122 | 0.126 | 97.3 |
| COL | 16985 | 1885 | 1953.7 | 0.111 | 0.115 | 96.5 |
| HOU | 15943 | 1922 | 1997.4 | 0.121 | 0.125 | 96.2 |
| CLE | 16767 | 2048 | 2131.1 | 0.122 | 0.127 | 96.1 |
| TOR | 16319 | 1977 | 2060.7 | 0.121 | 0.126 | 95.9 |
| CHA | 17128 | 2136 | 2248.1 | 0.125 | 0.131 | 95.0 |
| SDN | 16032 | 1846 | 1960.5 | 0.115 | 0.122 | 94.2 |
| ARI | 16245 | 1851 | 1966.5 | 0.114 | 0.121 | 94.1 |
| TEX | 16725 | 1831 | 1966.0 | 0.109 | 0.118 | 93.1 |
| FLO | 16004 | 1811 | 1955.9 | 0.113 | 0.122 | 92.6 |
If a team used Adrian Beltre over the the last five seasons, they were pretty good at third base. Detroit leads the pack, thanks to Brandon Inge:
| Fielder | In Play | Actual Outs | Predicted Outs | Actual DER | Predicted DER | Index |
| Brandon Inge | 12901 | 1772 | 1534.5 | 0.137 | 0.119 | 115.5 |
| Evan Longoria | 7774 | 1054 | 943.6 | 0.136 | 0.121 | 111.7 |
| Scott Rolen | 12222 | 1579 | 1461.0 | 0.129 | 0.120 | 108.1 |
| Eric Chavez | 4895 | 639 | 597.5 | 0.131 | 0.122 | 106.9 |
| Melvin Mora | 11353 | 1459 | 1369.8 | 0.129 | 0.121 | 106.5 |
| Mike Lowell | 9823 | 1298 | 1221.1 | 0.132 | 0.124 | 106.3 |
| Nick Punto | 4365 | 598 | 562.4 | 0.137 | 0.129 | 106.3 |
| Jack Hannahan | 4222 | 543 | 512.6 | 0.129 | 0.121 | 105.9 |
| Adrian Beltre | 14499 | 1840 | 1745.0 | 0.127 | 0.120 | 105.4 |
| Chone Figgins | 7441 | 905 | 859.0 | 0.122 | 0.115 | 105.3 |
| Ryan Zimmerman | 14647 | 1817 | 1745.1 | 0.124 | 0.119 | 104.1 |
| Ian Stewart | 5311 | 639 | 614.6 | 0.120 | 0.116 | 104.0 |
| Pedro Feliz | 12884 | 1672 | 1606.9 | 0.130 | 0.125 | 104.0 |
| Andy LaRoche | 5619 | 732 | 704.9 | 0.130 | 0.125 | 103.8 |
| Alex Gordon | 6409 | 753 | 726.3 | 0.117 | 0.113 | 103.7 |
| Jhonny Peralta | 4124 | 528 | 513.9 | 0.128 | 0.125 | 102.7 |
| Joe Crede | 7505 | 1032 | 1009.2 | 0.138 | 0.134 | 102.3 |
| Mark Teahen | 5416 | 646 | 640.9 | 0.119 | 0.118 | 100.8 |
| Chipper Jones | 10575 | 1243 | 1245.2 | 0.118 | 0.118 | 99.8 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 12766 | 1476 | 1508.3 | 0.116 | 0.118 | 97.9 |
| Ty Wigginton | 4642 | 546 | 557.9 | 0.118 | 0.120 | 97.9 |
| Casey Blake | 10279 | 1257 | 1289.0 | 0.122 | 0.125 | 97.5 |
| Jose Bautista | 6348 | 802 | 825.7 | 0.126 | 0.130 | 97.1 |
| David Wright | 14931 | 1808 | 1871.4 | 0.121 | 0.125 | 96.6 |
| Aramis Ramirez | 11546 | 1351 | 1405.1 | 0.117 | 0.122 | 96.2 |
| Edwin Encarnacion | 11086 | 1264 | 1318.5 | 0.114 | 0.119 | 95.9 |
| Chad Tracy | 4557 | 522 | 547.6 | 0.115 | 0.120 | 95.3 |
| Pablo Sandoval | 4718 | 559 | 591.1 | 0.118 | 0.125 | 94.6 |
| Kevin Kouzmanoff | 11031 | 1268 | 1346.5 | 0.115 | 0.122 | 94.2 |
| Mark Reynolds | 9924 | 1130 | 1205.9 | 0.114 | 0.122 | 93.7 |
| Troy Glaus | 8065 | 923 | 989.4 | 0.114 | 0.123 | 93.3 |
| Garrett Atkins | 9743 | 1045 | 1120.7 | 0.107 | 0.115 | 93.2 |
| Hank Blalock | 4054 | 457 | 490.9 | 0.113 | 0.121 | 93.1 |
| Casey McGehee | 4211 | 467 | 508.5 | 0.111 | 0.121 | 91.8 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 6241 | 715 | 789.2 | 0.115 | 0.126 | 90.6 |
| Michael Young | 5549 | 597 | 663.5 | 0.108 | 0.120 | 90.0 |
| Jorge Cantu | 4607 | 485 | 562.2 | 0.105 | 0.122 | 86.3 |
Of all the positions run so far, this one matches my expectations the best. The only person near the top of the list that strikes me as not belonging is Melvin Mora, and indeed FanGraphs ranks him low in terms of range runs.
You can also see how much Adrian Beltre will help the Rangers defensively. For every 100 outs Young would field, Beltre should pick up 116 to 117. Over 200 Young outs, Beltre will turn over a full game’s worth.
Miguel Cabrera will be in the Tigers’ camp at 4:30 to talk to the media. Cabrera has not taken part in Detroit workouts yet as he is being evaluated after his DUI arrest.
It’s official, Adam Wainwright will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the entire 2011 season.
The silver lining for the Cardinals is that they should trot out a pretty good offensive team for 2011. The Lineup Analysis Tool, using Marcel projections, rates this projected lineup at 4.8 runs per game. Since Wainwright allowed about 2.8 runs per nine innings over the last two years, we’d expect the Cardinals to win 25 of his 34 starts in 2011, a .746 winnings percentage. If they replace him with pitchers who average four runs per game, they should produce a .590 winning percentage, or about 20 wins.
So can the Cardinals offense squeeze out 50 more runs to make up for Wainwright’s loss. Albert Pujols will be motivated to have a career year with his contract up. David Freese and Colby Rasmus are at ages where we could see improvements. So there is upside potential in the lineup.
All is not lost for the Cardinals. As Rob Neyer pointed out, the Cardinals played like a 90 win team last year, so the loss of Wainwright puts them even at 85 wins. An 85 win team, with a little luck, can win 90 games and make the playoffs. A little more offense, and Dave Duncan working miracles with the pitching staff might just do the trick.
Rob Neyer notes that Jeremy Jeffress has a huge incentive to get out of the minor leagues. If he tests positive for marijuana again, he’ll be banned for life.
This is sort of a Catch-22. Pot smokers supposedly aren’t highly motivated, but if Jeffress isn’t highly motivated to pitch in the major leagues he might wind up back in the minor leagues where he can’t smoke pot.
I hope we get to see him pitch against Tim Lincecum some day.
Ben Cohen profiles the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. The group is near and dear to my heart.
The Orange County Register presents Bad MLB Merchandise.
Bad Cinema was my favorite LPG sketch. Great discussion of insect fear films of the ’50s.
Alfonso Soriano talks about his mother, who died suddenly from a heart attack last month:
Andrea Soriano wasn’t just mother and father to Alfonso and his siblings after the parents split when he was very young — she was also a baseball fan.
If not for her influence, he might have become an engineer instead of a $136 million ballplayer.
‘‘She supported me all the time,’’ he said. ‘‘I remember when I was a little kid, I wanted to move to my father’s house, and I went for two days and then went back to my mom’s house.’’
His father, who lived in the city — San Pedro de Macoris — didn’t let him play baseball after school and saw more opportunity in studying, even at an elementary-school level, and putting his efforts toward a white-collar profession.
‘‘My pop, he wanted me to be an engineer because he used to be an engineer,’’ Soriano said. ‘‘And I told him, ‘No, I want to play baseball.’ And I went back to my mom. My mom gave me the green light to do whatever I wanted in baseball. She’d say, ‘Go to school first, in the morning, and in the afternoon you can go to the field and work on baseball.’?’’
In most cases, his father would be right. This time, mom was, and her son became a great player and a very rich man.
Joe Girardi is not averse to starting the season with Jesus Montero as the backup catcher. With Joe and Tony Pena as his tutors, he might learn more about catching in the majors. Yogi Berra completed his catching training in the majors under the eye of Bill Dickey.