First, (obviously skewed and unrealistic) numbers.

If baseball were played once a week:

• Given the current months baseball is played, each team would play 26 games a season, for 780 games total.
• For Barry Bonds to hit a season-record 73 home runs, he would have to have averaged 2.8 home runs per game.
• For him to end his 22-season career with 762 home runs, he would have needed to average 1.33 dingers per every game played.
• If Barry Bonds wanted to maintain his career walk total of 2558 at his career rate of .86 BB/game, he would have had to play for 114 seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

In triumphing over the Rangers on Monday, Pittsburgh finally lurched over the .500 mark and thereby joined a proud, and recently underpopulated, list of winners in the Steel City. Let’s take a stroll back through the annals of successful buccaneering, shall we?

1671 – This dominating season saw Henry Morgan seal his case for the Pirate Hall of Fame, completing the unprecedented feat of sacking and burning the city of Panama.

1925 – These Pirates rode future Hall of Famers Kiki Cuyler and Pie Traynor to a pennant and, ultimately, a seven-game world championship for their second time in history.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t read Rany on the Royals, Rany Jazayerli’s intelligent, passionate blog about the Royals — whether or not you care a whit about the Royals — I don’t know why you bother having an Internet connection, because new entries over there are one of the Internet-reading-things I most look forward to.

One of the commenters on a recent post (scroll down to Kenneth) criticized Rany for being too negative. He’s absolutely negative a lot of the time, but these are the Royals, so how positive can you be? He’s negative when they deserve it, and they seem to pretty much always deserve it. That said, I thought it might be fun to imagine Rany… on My Breakfast. This is meant to honor, not to criticize. I love love love his blog, and I don’t care at all about the Royals.

I’ve argued for a while that I would accept eating cereal without milk, but it has to be a good cereal. One that makes up for the lack of milk with enough positive qualities — crunch, flavor, nutritional profile — that we could overlook the one big negative. I know that every breakfast has its plusses and minuses. Rationally, I know that. And I know that even the limited number of perfect breakfasts — challah french toast, smoked salmon on a bagel, Davey Johnson Flakes — aren’t always available when you need them, and may not always be the right fit for any given individual — but this morning, when Jeremy ate Trader Joe’s Bran Flakes, plain, in a bowl, with his FINGERS, I realized I can no longer stand by and support the lack of milk. There has to be milk. Next time he goes to the supermarket — or, really, anywhere that sells food — he has to buy milk, and he has to buy it for the express purpose of using it on his cereal. It’s been too long. It’s as simple as that.

Of course, I say that, and then I have to qualify it. It’s not as simple as that. Trader Joe’s Bran Flakes have been on the market for years and they’re just as dry as they’ve always been. I accept that not every cereal starts out perfect, but you have to see progress. And even if Trader Joe’s is insisting there’s an eight-year plan (which, of course, used to be a five-year plan, until it was a six-year plan, and soon enough it’s going to be a twelve-year plan), at some point you have to stop planning and see results.

Bran Flakes are EXACTLY THE AGE that they should be improving.

MILK IS AVAILABLE — and without giving up any prospects, of course.

You put it all together and you have to understand — nothing about this breakfast is acceptable. NOTHING. And I fear this won’t be the end of it. FEAR. END. NOTHING. BRAN. ROYALS. TERRIBLE. EXPLODE.

Before a game against the Giants, I talked to the Diamondbacks’ outfielder Adam Eaton about the first pitch and patience. That conversation may have had some unintended consequences.

Eno Sarris: Is it a mindset? Are you waiting for *this* pitch? Or are you waiting for a good pitch?

Adam Eaton: Depends on the situation for sure. In the leadoff spot, you don’t really wait for a pitch. As a leadoff hitter, you’re usually going to see a heater unless you get two strikes. And you want to see a lot of pitches. You almost want to see offspeed to let the guys behind you see those type of pitches. Depends on situations. In the leadoff spot, situation dictates how aggressive you can be, how many pitches you see and how comfortable you can get.

Sarris: You’re right, the numbers say that the first pitch of the game is like 90% fastballs and a lot of times in the zone. How do you balance “I need to see more pitches for my teammates” with “this first pitch is maybe going to be the best pitch I see”?

Read the rest of this entry »

Vinegar-base slaw: far superior.

Hot Facts:

1. On September 9, 2013, the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Texas Rangers by a score of 1-0.
2. It was the 82nd win of the 2013 season for the Pirates, securing them a winning season for the first time since 1992.
3. In said contest, Gerrit Cole put the team on his back, out-pitching Yu Darvish with seven shut-out innings while striking out nine Rangers.
4. Instead of Gatorade or another thirst-quenching beverage, the coolers in the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout are filled with fresh and delicious Primanti Bros. coleslaw.

Let these Hot Facts be known far and wide.

In which the Royal We insert Dick Allen’s name into various works representative of the Western Canon, thus adding to those various works the patina of blessedness.

In today’s episode, we learn, in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, that Dick Allen is forever.

“Montag.” Granger took Montag’s shoulder firmly. “Walk carefully. Guard your health. If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes. See how important you’ve become in the last minute!”
“But I’ve forgotten!”
“No, nothing’s ever lost. We have ways to shake down your clinkers for you.”
“But I’ve tried to remember!”
“Don’t try. It’ll come when we need it. All of us have photographic memories, but spend a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there. Simmons here has worked on it for twenty years and now we’ve got the method down to where we can recall anything that’s been read once. Would you like, some day, Montag, to read Plato’s Republic?
“Of course!”
“I am Plato’s Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus.”
“How do you do?” said Mr. Simmons.
“Hello,” said Montag.
“I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver’s Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Dick Allen and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”
Everyone laughed quietly.
“It can’t be, said Montag.
“It is,” replied Granger smiling.

This has been the latest episode of Inserting Dick Allen’s Name Into Works of Literature.

In the past, the author of this post has facilitated what’s known as the Player Profile Game, in which readers are given a player profile — generally one having been written for FanGraphs Plus — and tasked with providing the identity of the player in question.

What we have on our hands presently, however, is not the past, but rather the present. As per usual, the present has issued its own set of unique circumstances and constraints. In particular, what the present has provided today is a copy of Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook from 2006 into the hands of the author.

Below are three profiles from said Handbook, in likely order of difficulty. For each player, the author has included the prospect’s parent club and Baseball America ranking within same as of the 2006 preseason.

Note that the author regards this exercise not at all as a commentary on the editors of Baseball America, nor their capacity to rank prospects. If certain young players’ future talent has been assessed incorrectly, this is almost entirely due to the difficulties inherent to that sort of exercise.

Prospect No. 1 (Player Page)
Club: Cincinnati
Ranking: Ninth

Profile:

The Reds tried to cut costs in the 2002 draft with disastrous results, as Denorfia and [BLANK] are the lone bright spots from that crop. After establishing himself as the system’s best power prospect, [BLANK] had a disappointing 2005 and continued to struggle in the Arizona Fall League. [BLANK] can launch balls out of sight in batting practice. He drew 90 walks in 2004, showing a disciplined, mature approach. For a big man and former catcher, [BLANK] runs the bases well, and he has grown into a solid defensive first baseman with an above-average arm for the position. [BLANK] lacks plus bat speed and his swing lengthened in 2005. Perhaps too passive in the past, he seemed to start guessing, finding himself behind fastballs and ahead of offspeed offerings. He especially struggled against lefties, hitting .193 with a .315 slugging percentage. [BLANK]’s prospect stock has taken a hit, though he’s still the top first-base prospect in the system. He heeds to rediscover his short stroke and trust his natural hitting instincts in Double-A in 2006.

Read the rest of this entry »

While clicking around Twitter looking for inspiration for today’s post, I came across A’s first baseman Nate Freiman’s Twitter page, where he calls himself a “baseball player and caddie.” Freiman’s wife is Amanda Blumenherst, an LPGA golfer who, according to Wikipedia, has earned more than half a million dollars since turning pro in 2009. Freiman has caddied for her seven times.

Including at the CME Group Titleholders 2012, photo leading off an article from Golfweek about Blumenherst deciding to give up the rigors of the tour in order to spend more time with Nate.

Writes Golfweek, “There isn’t a prettier set of teeth on tour.”

Wait… WHAT?

And people think NotGraphs is fluff? (Maybe.) Golfweek is, as far as I can tell, an actual printed publication.

Coming up next week on TeeGraphs, LPGA TEETHWATCH.

The present author is an expert on almost zero topics. The production of embarrassing odors, perhaps. The concealment of those same embarrassing odors, probably also.

Two other disciplines, however, in which the author possesses something not very different than expertise — and both of which are decidedly relevant to the present weblog post — are Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber and also capital-S Splendor.

Much like a Spice Girls song in which two become one, Corey Kluber and Splendor became one in the second inning of Kluber’s start last (Saturday) night — in particular on a 1-2 count to Mets first baseman Lucas Duda, on which count Kluber threw a two-seam fastball that started somewhere in the vicinity of Duda’s front hip and then migrated across the strike zone, like how the author’s Italian ancestors migrated across the Atlantic Ocean, if the Atlantic Ocean were a strike zone.

Like here, for example, in regular motion:

Read the rest of this entry »

I have, perhaps, an unhealthy love for Ben Revere, who until today seemed like the very picture of perfection as a Major League Baseball player. A lovable speedster who was constantly hustling and who had an infectious smile, I was smitten immediately. Even the trade that sent him from my beloved Twins to the Phillies failed to dampen my enthusiasm for him.

And then he tweeted this yesterday:

“@iknowjado: I miss my bro @BenRevere9” miss you too no homo

— Ben Revere (@BenRevere9) September 5, 2013

It has since been deleted.

At first, I was aghast that such a beautiful creature could tweet something so callously homophobic. I was all set to type a scathing response, explaining how I felt betrayed by yet another ballplayer I allowed to let me down. I was going to criticize him for his bad joke and me for my investment in Ben Revere’s purity. I was set to pine for an earlier time when we were allowed to pretend that flu-like symptoms were flu-like symptoms, Mickey Mantle was a hero, and beaver hunts were solely the province of voyageurs.

Read the rest of this entry »