The Art of (Hitting Into) the Double Play

Many of us are already well aware that one of the worst things a hitter can do is ground into a double play, or triple play for that matter but as cool as they are they are also incredibly rare. There are some players that are incredibly inept at avoiding the double play while others are actually pretty damn good at it. Generally, when evaluating whether a player is double-play…
Read more...Can Baseball Hitters Create Their Own Luck?

When you think of BABIP, or batting average on balls in play, for players the first thing that typically comes to mind is luck. An incredibly high BABIP would indicate that the hitter in question was quite lucky that more balls than average found a hole somewhere, just as an incredibly low BABIP would indicate that those balls were likely being hit right at guys in the field very consistently….
Read more...Living on the Edge (of the strike zone): Part One

When it comes to pitching and pitching strategy every single team and player is always on the lookout for that “extra something” that will give them an edge over their opponents. In this case I’m not actually referring to performance enhancing drugs but instead am referring to utilizing the edge of the strike zone to get a leg up on hitters. Basically my thought process is that pitchers who are…
Read more...The Greatest Rookie Season in Baseball History

The great thing about baseball is it has such a long and storied history that you never run out of things to talk about, especially when it comes to debating the greatest seasons by teams or individual players ever. And that is actually what I am here to debate with you, myself, and anyone else who is interested really when it comes to the greatest rookie season ever. Allow me…
Read more...The Five Worst Contracts of Last Off-Season

I’ve already given you the good news with the five best contracts signed in baseball last off-season, which you can read here, if you haven’t checked it out already. Now it’s time for the soul-crushing bad news for the teams that are guilty of handing out the five worst contracts from last off-season. What a way to kick off the year 2013! Before we get to the five worst contracts…
Read more...The Impending Collapse of the New York Yankees Dynasty

It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about the New York Yankees payroll and luxury tax situation, and in case you missed it or would like to give it another read you can do that here. To give you a brief overview though, and it’ll make sense why in a moment, the Yankees are trying to get under the luxury tax threshold of $189 million dollars as quickly as…
Read more...Where’s the Outcry Over Ugueth Urbina?

Former relief pitcher and closer Ugueth Urbina was sentenced to 14 years and 7 months in prison on March 28, 2007 for attempted murder. While attempted murder is pretty self explanatory, it doesn’t nearly begin to explain what Urbina attempted to do to five farm workers on his property because he suspected them of stealing a gun from him (although he had no proof). This all took place in November…
Read more...The Five Best Baseball Contracts of Last Off-Season

It was just about two weeks ago that I wrote a piece detailing how ridiculous free agency in Major League Baseball can be and how incredibly stupid handing out long-term, big money contracts is. During my research I decided to create a metric that placed a WAR value on the total value of the contracts being given out to players to draw conclusions about the contract itself, whether it’s a…
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