2014 MLB catch-all thread

[Soxfest]

And martinez has been great this year, batting .333, better protection than fielder lol wish the sox would have got vmart instead of dunn,oh well

I love VM wish he was here next year in Dunn's spot.

[Kyyle23]

And martinez has been great this year, batting .333, better protection than fielder lol wish the sox would have got vmart instead of dunn,oh well

 

Yea it would have been great to watch him spend 2012 on the DL. This site would have loved that

[LittleHurt05]

Yea it would have been great to watch him spend 2012 on the DL. This site would have loved that

 

And he wasn't that much better in 2013 if you can look past batting average. And 2011 doesn't exist in my world.

[Balta1701]

Renderings of the new braves ballpark (and some comments).

[Balta1701]

Also, can't find a thread on him but important post noting legal issues with Cuban ballplayer Alfredo Despaigne and identity fraud/document falsification.

[flavum]

Tanaka CG shutout.

 

Has the Chicago media even mentioned he's pitching here twice next week?

[fathom]

Tanaka CG shutout.

 

Has the Chicago media even mentioned he's pitching here twice next week?

 

The Chicago media covers baseball still?

[caulfield12]

Tanaka CG shutout.

 

Has the Chicago media even mentioned he's pitching here twice next week?

 

 

What bodes well for him is his amount of success pitching in the low 90's, rather than the advertised 94-95 MPH.

 

Verlander and Scherzer have also been very good this year (K's are down, righties are hitting Verlander more than ever before but he seems to be conserving his arm more than at any point in his career) pitching at much lower velocities. They can still dial it up for big at-bats, in the 96-97 range.

[LittleHurt05]

The Chicago media covers baseball still?

 

LOL, beat me to it.

[caulfield12]

IN THE AFTERMATH, the players remembered how Masahiro Tanaka flinched, ducking as if someone had rifled a ball at his face.

 

It was early evening in a late-April game at Fenway, and Tanaka had carried a 4-0 lead into the fourth. He'd fallen behind 3 and 1 to David Ortiz and, to keep from walking him, challenged the slugger with a fastball. Pitching 101. Ortiz anticipated the fastball -- Hitting 101 -- and destroyed the pitch, a massive, fully leveraged hack. That was when Tanaka ducked his chin into his shoulder, as if the contact unnerved him. Then he watched as the ball soared high above, landing in a spot in center where Ortiz had never before driven it, some 482 feet away. As Ortiz's teammate Jonny Gomes later said, "I bet nobody has ever hit a ball that hard against him."

 

That is, until the next batter. Tanaka, on a 1-1 count to Mike Napoli, fired another fastball. Napoli blistered a home run 405 feet toward the Massachusetts Turnpike, and Tanaka flinched even worse. His hands flashed upward and his body rippled, like someone taking a punch to the chin.

 

He was now faced with baseball's truest test: responding to the failure inherent in the game. Would Tanaka, the 25-year-old beneficiary of a $175 million investment -- the most the Yankees had ever spent on any free agent pitcher -- crack and begin to falter as New York's other Asian pitchers had? (Most notable was Kei Igawa, who played so poorly the Yankees benefited more from keeping him in the minors than calling him up.) Or would he live up to his 24-0 record with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles last year, which presaged the offseason bidding war in which Tanaka became the most hotly pursued Japanese pitcher in history?

 

Tanaka waited for Napoli to round the bases and stared as Gomes dug in. His body language betrayed nothing; he showed no sign of panic. His face looked determined, if flushed with anger. Two pitches into the at-bat he got Gomes to fly out. But then A.J. Pierzynski doubled off the Monster -- Another crack? The makings of a Red Sox rout? Tanaka snatched the ball but remained otherwise serene. He promptly struck out Xander Bogaerts to end the inning. That night Tanaka faced 12 more hitters, and none advanced beyond second base. The next day, chatting in the batting cage, Red Sox hitters would marvel at how he seemed to throw harder as the game progressed, nicking the edges of the strike zone, his split-fingered fastball fooling hitter after hitter as it sank out of sight at the plate. Tanaka pitched 7 innings, picking up the 9-3 win, and stayed perfect on the year at 3-0.

 

As Yankees catcher Brian McCann says, "He knows when to go to max effort."

 

buster olney/espn.com

[Melissa1334]

I love VM wish he was here next year in Dunn's spot.

still better than dunn lol and me too but this team has too many dhs

[Melissa1334]

And he wasn't that much better in 2013 if you can look past batting average. And 2011 doesn't exist in my world.

and im assuming this is sarcasm?lol

[LittleHurt05]

and im assuming this is sarcasm?lol

 

Not at all.

 

VMart: .301/.355/.430/.785

Dunn: .219/.320/.442/.762

 

Martinez got on base more, but Dunn hit for more power and had 20 more homers. Depending on what you are looking for, Dunn wasn't really that much worse in 2013.

[Melissa1334]

Not at all.

 

VMart: .301/.355/.430/.785

Dunn: .219/.320/.442/.762

 

Martinez got on base more, but Dunn hit for more power and had 20 more homers. Depending on what you are looking for, Dunn wasn't really that much worse in 2013.

was just wondering why u said you dont count 2011?

[LittleHurt05]

was just wondering why u said you dont count 2011?

 

Because forcing someone to think about Dunn's 2011 season is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment

[Melissa1334]

Because forcing someone to think about Dunn's 2011 season is the definition of cruel and unusual punishment

ah ok, gotcha haha no one will ever forget lol

[southsider2k5]

Ben Badler ‏@BenBadler 1h

 

22 teams have an OPS under .700 from their LF or RF spots this season. Yeah, there's a few teams that would like to have Alfredo Despaigne.

[IlliniKrush]

Future TJ surgery:

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10935698...ches-14-innings

[Kyyle23]

That really is terrible. That coach should be removed from his position

[LittleHurt05]

Martin Perez is the next pitcher to succumb to Tommy John disease. If you think the Sox have injury problems, the Rangers have it way worse.

[Balta1701]

Martin Perez is the next pitcher to succumb to Tommy John disease. If you think the Sox have injury problems, the Rangers have it way worse.

This image is from a couple years ago but you inspred me to find it.

[caulfield12]

This image is from a couple years ago but you inspred me to find it.

 

Herm Schneider should just bring that graph/chart into his next contract negotiation.

 

Or the one about the fewest days on the DL for Sox pitchers over the past decade, etc.

[caulfield12]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2...shifts/9010489/

 

Good article on the proliferation of defensive shifts this season.

 

One problem, is that technically they're only counting shifts when there are three players to the right of the 2nd base bag for lefties and three to the left for righties...so there are lots of times when the player is "close" to being in a shift but not technically being counted for statistical purposes.

 

And there's no simplistic way to account for individual players shading a couple of feet in one direction or another, like the Tigers work on with Vizquel as their infield coordinator.

[ptatc]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2...shifts/9010489/

 

Good article on the proliferation of defensive shifts this season.

 

One problem, is that technically they're only counting shifts when there are three players to the right of the 2nd base bag for lefties and three to the left for righties...so there are lots of times when the player is "close" to being in a shift but not technically being counted for statistical purposes.

 

And there's no simplistic way to account for individual players shading a couple of feet in one direction or another, like the Tigers work on with Vizquel as their infield coordinator.

I think the reason is that the "small" shift one way or another has always been done. All infielders will move slightly depending on who is hitting. We did it in little league in the 70's.

It's the proliferation drastic shifts that is new.

[witesoxfan]

This image is from a couple years ago but you inspred me to find it.

Herm Schneider should just bring that graph/chart into his next contract negotiation.

 

Or the one about the fewest days on the DL for Sox pitchers over the past decade, etc.

 

This looks to me more like a difference in organizational philosophy. The Sox believe strongly in finding durable pitchers with projectable stuff and bodies, while the Braves are all about guys that feature good stuff. Guys that feature dynamite stuff like that seem to have a tendency to have the Tommy John surgery more often.

Edited May 16, 2014 by witesoxfan