Browsing through the Japanese leaderboards at baseball-reference is a strange occupation. The first thing you notice is all of the old friends who are doing well over there: boldfaced names who played in the majors once upon a time and took the transpacific voyage to keep playing baseball. Of all of the hitters with at [...]
Last night, Matt Cain and R.A. Dickey combined to allow one hit in 18 innings, striking out 26 guys in the process. It was two of the very best performances of the year, and they happened on the same night. So, that got me thinking – how often do we get two stellar performances on [...]
Matt Cain threw a perfect game Wednesday night, the first one in the 128-year history of the Giants franchise. Just moments after the game ended, Dave Cameron provided some historical context on Cain’s pitching performance, looking at the highest GameScores in baseball history. I’ve had a bit more time for reflection. If you read my [...]
Matt Cain is not first on any list of dominating pitchers — not historically, not currently. He doesn’t throw the prototypical mid-90s fastball; he doesn’t bring the hammer curve or sweeping slider that defined hall-of-fame talents like Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens. Instead, Matt Cain deals in low-90s heat, sneaky changeups and get-me-over [...]
J.J. Hardy receives a lot of accolades for his bat, and rightly so. He hit 30 home runs last season, which tied him with Troy Tulowitzi for the most among big-league shortstops. He also can flash the leather. According to The Fielding Bible, “J.J. Hardy could be the most underrated shortstop in baseball. He makes [...]
Matt Cain just threw the 22nd perfect game in baseball history, which is of course an amazing accomplishment. But, through the way he dominated on the way to his perfect game, Cain actually joined an even more exclusive club – guys who have posted a Game Score above 100 in a nine inning game. Before [...]
On Tuesday night in Miami, Clay Buchholz had one of his best performances in recent memory, posting his highest single-game strikeout total (nine) since April of 2010 (when he struck out 10 at home against Texas) and second-lowest single-game xFIP (2.77) in over a year (box). It’s probably not controversial to suggest that Buchholz has [...]
Last night in Atlanta, Alex Rodriguez hit the 23rd grand slam of his career, typing Lou Gehrig. Even if Nick Swisher‘s two-run homer later the same inning put the Yankees on top for good and was the bigger play according to Win Probability Added (WPA), tying up the game on one swing with his team [...]
The month of June has been very kind to Josh Johnson. In 14.2 innings, the big right-hander owns a 1.84 ERA with impressive peripheral numbers to match: 16 strikeouts, just four walks, and no home runs against two quality lineups in Atlanta and Boston. The key has been a revival off the stuff that made [...]
This post isn’t going to be overly long, because the data mostly speaks for itself. One of the primary traits that scouts look for in a catcher is a strong throwing arm, and catchers who can throw out opposing base stealers are often considered to be good defenders regardless of what else they do behind [...]
