Per Baseball Press, Charlie Blackmon appears set to play left and bat seventh against Tim Stauffer tonight.

There are two sorts of sporting bloggers in this world: those who do, and those who do not, know how to make a GIF. Having recently joined the lowest rung of the former camp, I possess that zeal unique to converts.

In this edition of Hot GIF, I’ve endeavored to capture the league’s five best sliders. The idea, I suppose — although I can’t be certain, really — is to get a sense of what an excellent slider looks like. By “best,” in this case, I mean “the top-five sliders by runs above average per hundred thrown, with something like a hundred (or more) thrown” (which leaderboard you can see above and here).

When capturing the above footage, I’ve tried to meet the following criteria as closely as possible, so’s to limit any visual variables:

• Pitcher facing same-handed batter.
• Pitch receives swing and miss.
• Camera straight-on from center field.
• Footage as recent as possible.

After the jump, you can find the GIFs of each pitcher above throwing his slider. Give the page a bit to load, probably. And, click on any image to watch just that GIF by itself.

Read the rest of this entry »

Word from the internet this afternoon suggests that the Colorado Rockies could very well promote Charlie Blackmon from Triple-A Colorado Springs, where he’s currently doing unspeakable things to Triple-A pitchers.

Blackmon, as the bespectacled reader is undoubtedly aware, was the captain of this year’s iteration of Team Joy Squad — an exercise in what is referred to by young men as “rosterbation” but what is referred to as “Ecstatic Truth Roster Construction” by the Puritan-rich sons of New England.

In any case, America, turn on your frigging heartlight, okay. Neil Diamond says so.

H/T: Like three people.

This GIF — from the bottom of the first inning of Friday night’s contest between Arizona and Washington — depicts reliever J.J. Putz doing to Joe Saunders roughly the same thing that Saunders himself does to the Diamondbacks every time he pitches.

The chief surprise for this author — among the so fresh and mostly clean-clean Player NERD leaderboard at the main site, that is — the chief surprise was the presence of Gerardo Parra’s name amongst said leaders. I’ve generally not cared for the light-hitting, kinda anonymous-seeming Parra; however, looking over his fielding numbers, it’s not surprising that his WAR per 650 PAs is so excellent.

Though the sample of 1511.1 innings isn’t entirely reliable, Parra’s posted an excellent 22.5 UZR (18.3 UZR/150) in left field from the beginning of 2009 up till the present — a stupid-high 24.4 of which has come in just the last 934.1 innings, dating back to the beginning of 2010.

The numbers suggest that it’s Parra’s range which translates most directly into runs, although these two plays from just the last week or so (along with his Fan Scouting Report from last season) reveal that Parra also has a powerful and accurate arm.

The real question, of course, is whether one ought to refer to same as a Gun, Cannon, Laser, or Rocket.

From May 25th, against the Rockies:

From May 30th, against the Marlins:

Some cursory Google-ing reveals no specific announcement on the matter from MLB itself, but, as David Pinto discovered ca. 48 hours ago (and the media on the present electronic page illustrates) video embedding is now available through MLB.com.

Here’s what the page for the above video looks like, for example:

As Pinto suggests — and which even more cursory investigation reveals — there doesn’t appear to be an embed option for the most recent videos. While that makes the discovery less than 100% satisfying, this certainly marks a step in the best direction for MLB.

This video is presented without comment, except to say that:

(a) This video has been made available to the world courtesy OMGreds.

(b) It (i.e. the video) was brought to our attention by Loyal -Graphs reader Randy.

(c) In lieu of personal glory, Loyal -Graphs reader Randy asks that you maybe aid and abet in destroying MS.

Yogi Berra is looking at, or near, your soul.

In our most recent and third-ever NotGraphs Chat, reader and commenter TheGrandSlamwich asked which, among Yogi Berra’s various and sundry bon mots, was our (Dayn’s and my) favorite. This, like picking one’s favorite child, is simple. For me, it’s this, regarding a restaurant: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” For Dayn, I forget. His opinions, being not mine, are of secondary importance to my life experience.

In a suspiciously timed — but no less authentic — turn of events, our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has just today discovered five previously unpublished Yogiisms. As to whether they’re Authentic Berra — who himself quothed “I really didn’t say everything I said” — it’s hard to say. Either way, you’re sure to amuse your friends and numerous lovers with what follows.

Regard:

On His Health
I’m fine: the doctor looked in my head and didn’t find anything.

On Being Second-Guessed
No one can second-guess me. I guessed more times than that already.

On Golf
I played 18 holes, I just didn’t use’em all.

On Half-Way Crooks, Existence Of
There ain’t no such things as half-way crooks.*

On Growing Up Poor
I never lived on the street, but I could see it from my window.

*There’s reason to believe that Mobb Deep took this from Berra.

The image you see here is either (a) from the top of the third inning of Tuesday’s FS Southwest broadcast of the Rangers and Rays or (b) a recent painting by photorealist Chuck Close.

In either case, it’s definitely titled Two Cool Dudes.

Per order of the Internet Council, every baseball-related blog is forced to post this.

Hot GIF action courtesy Bill Baer by way of — I ess you en — Drew Fairservice, Marc Normandin, and then Mike Axisa, who just told me about it in the elevator at FanGraphs Headquarters.