kickass media 2017

weird/fun: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19522870/major-league-litter-strategic-bat-toss-turn-trash-treasure

odd that he didn't mention russell martin hitting shin-soo choo's bat in that magical playoff inning tho

http://www.hardballtimes.com/wade-boggs-rickey-henderson-and-the-fly-ball-that-disappeared/

The Juiced Ball Is Back

Mitchel Lichtman, my coauthor on this article, is a former consultant to MLB teams, the creator of ultimate zone rating, and the coauthor of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. Late last year, Lichtman commissioned independent ball-testing in an effort to confirm or refute the altered-ball hypothesis. First, he purchased 36 game-used MLB balls from eBay, each of which was authenticated for a particular game with an official MLB collector’s holographic sticker. Seventeen of the balls were used in games played prior to the 2015 All-Star break, ranging from May 2014 to July 2015. Nine were used in games in either August or September 2015, and the remaining 10 were used in May, June, or July 2016. The balls seemed to be in good condition, and the three groups were indistinguishable from each other by outward appearance and feel.

Lichtman sent the balls to one of the few facilities capable of rigorous testing, the Sports Science Lab at Washington State University. There, the balls’ CORs were tested by firing them at 120 mph into a steel cylinder, six times each, which is considered the closest approximation of in-game collisions that wouldn’t destroy the ball. The lab also measured the circumference and weight of the balls, the height of their seams, and their dynamic stiffness (a more sciency way to say “hardness”). Before testing, all of the balls were stored for two weeks in a humidor with constant temperature and humidity to ensure consistent conditions, and randomly coded so that no one at the lab knew which balls came from each lot. (Lichtman kept the key that matched codes to baseballs.)

The testing revealed significant differences in balls used after the 2015 All-Star break in each of the components that could affect the flight of the ball, in the directions we would have expected based on the massive hike in home run rate. While none of these attributes in isolation could explain the increase in home runs that we saw in the summer of 2015, in combination, they can....

https://theringer.com/amp/p/155cd21108bc?gi=a8b1a0e13653

In 2017, Latinos represent over one in four players in MLB and have shaped America's pastime as much as it has shaped them. We asked prospects, starters and future Hall of Famers to share their stories and perspectives. What is it like to learn a new language, crack the game's code of unwritten rules and deal with political turmoil in the United States and back home? Here is their béisbol experience.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/19625385/beisbol-experience-mlb-50-man-interview

good but kind of depressing. mlb/milb really still has that little supportive infrastructure for latino players?

I really used to enjoy reading Cliff Corcoran's monthly awards round-up in Sports Illustrated--didn't realize he was let go last August.

http://cliffcorcoran.com/2016/08/31/farewell-to-si-com/

If you care, he's writing regularly at Sports on Earth now--but he seems to have dropped the Awards Watch column.

Exhaustive post-season walk-off roundup:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/postseason_pendulums_-_part_2_-_the_walk_offs/

Which makes me wonder: is Bautista's bat-flip HR the most famous non-walk-off post-season HR ever? There must be something more famous.

Reggie Jackson's third homer in that World Series game probably takes the cake

That's a good one. I'd call those two about even (hard to compare pre-internet fame with post-).

Ruth's called shot, even though it exists, if it all, in the ether.

Bernie Carbo's game-tying HR in the Fisk game looms large if you saw it, otherwise probably forgotten.

a vote for the pujols homer that broke brad lidge

The piece makes mention that Bobby Thomson's HR isn't counted as post-season. Otherwise, I think you could reasonably argue that the two most famous post-season HR--one a walk-off, the other not--came in tiebreak games: Thomson and Bucky Dent.

Mazeroski prob most meaningful outside the BOS-NY corridor, at least pre-expansion

Almost nobody noticed it, but a major league team changed its name prior to the 2016 season. Slipped into a team style sheet was a detail almost nobody noticed until this June: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim dropped the “of Anaheim” label and returned to the name “Los Angeles Angels” for the first time since the club moved away from Dodger Stadium in 1965.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/the-absurd-history-of-the-los-angeles-angels-of-anaheim/

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mid-season-park-factor-update/

http://ken.arneson.name/2017/08/sonny-gray-and-the-collective-bargaining-agreement/

Very enlightening and funny interview with Fernando Perez, who you may remember scored the winning walk-off run for Tampa Bay in 2008 ALCS Game 2. (also the first Latino Ivy Leaguer in MLB) Topics include the utility of batting practice.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1093-live-at-the-bell-house-with-fernando-perez/

he is awesome

He is! Needs a regular TV job.

there's a great Grantland joke in that podcast pace Ben Lindbergh

Feel bad for traveling beat writers who have to record post-game videos from hotel rooms.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20294816/skunk-outfield-how-most-epic-trick-play-history-broke-baseball

I like this piece a lot as an illustration of the idea that a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. Not everyone will.

http://www.billjamesonline.com/of_war_walhalla_and_the_right_to_think/

1. Lou Whitaker was a better player than Lou Brock.
2. Lou Brock is a better Hall of Famer than Lou Whitaker.

1. those are not opposed ideas
2. if, after that tweet, you call james a first-rate intelligence about anything other than baseball i am going fly to toronto and put a dead mouse in your two-four

James didn't write that. (And yes, I exclude politics--and music--from James's domain of first-rate intelligence.)

(I do think many people would see those two statements as incompatible.)

spoonerized names2, via brisbee

having all this data is neat

it's also taylorism on a level i wouldn't likely support anywhere else

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/protecting-players-against-big-data

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32646

Alex Wood and the evolving starter/reliever dynamic

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20604315/why-every-starting-pitcher-turning-alex-wood

Royals star Amos Otis to reunite with boys (now men) he aided during ’77 Plaza flood

Forty years to the day that Amos Otis came to the aid of eight boys stranded by the historic Sept. 12, 1977 “Plaza flood,” the former Royals Gold Glove outfielder will for the first time meet some of those boys again face-to-face.

Those boys, of course, are now men in their 50s and include now 54-year-old Missouri state Rep. Richard Brown. At 1:30 p.m. Tuesday Brown is set to hand Otis a framed proclamation that honors him as a Good Samaritan for an act of kindness that deeply affected Brown.

Prior to becoming a state legislator, Brown had been a teacher in the Kansas City public schools for 24 years. He said that Otis’ assistance on the day that 25 people in the Kansas City area lost their lives set a pattern for him to help children as if they were his own.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article172635626.html

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/253726830/byron-buxton-leads-statcast-outs-above-average/

new metric: outs above average. leaderboard here: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/outs_above_average?type=player&year=2017&min=50

Jays fans--this one included--will flinch at Kevin Pillar ranked #102.

that's cool. they have 2016 in there, too (billy hamilton led the league)

xpost

jays ranked last in MLB, too, if you do it by team

Dave Fleming again, not James; looks at Ozzie Smith's MVP case in '87 vs. Andrelton Simmons' this year (specifically, a disconnect between the two).

http://www.billjamesonline.com/ozzie_and_the_mvp/

the plot holes of this season

Why is the best player so short?

Why is the other best player so tall?

Why does Robert Gsellman, a pitcher, have the league's best contact rate at the plate?

Pujols has been the least-valuable player in baseball, by WAR. And he has also been the third most clutch hitter in baseball? Cute conceit, but life doesn't really work that way.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20838192/mlb-season-115-recap-counted-27-head-scratching-plot-holes

One flap down: Remembering Jeffrey Leonard's incredible, unusual 1987 NLCS

http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/jeffrey-leonard-1987-nlcs-mvp-one-flap-down-home-runs-video-giants-cardinals/t4ecro50b1e81aq9apfvv8egg

Michael Baumann on why liking the "plucky" Yankees is "an existential threat" to baseball and America. (30:45-37:00) (NSFW)

https://www.theringer.com/2017/10/19/16504990/the-yankees-comeback-the-dodgers-dominance-and-problems-with-playoff-managing

Daniel Marks' All-Coulda-Been Team:

C – Jason Kendall
1B – Hal Trosky
2B – Carlos Baerga
3B – Eric Chavez (but probably just keeping the spot warm for David Wright)
SS – Nomar Garciaparra
LF – Charlie Keller
CF – Pete Reiser
RF – Darryl Strawberry
P – Dwight Gooden

http://www.billjamesonline.com/rising_stars_falling_stars/

ESPN's Sam Miller writes about one of the more serious moral issues facing the game today:

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/21587602/to-fist-bump-not-fist-bump-do-players-deserve-reward-intentional-walk

ICYMI, great interview with '50s Pirates infielder-pitcher Johnny O'Brien (age 87, remembers everything)

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1153-johnny-on-the-spot/

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/tht-annual-2018

wow

fields are shrinkin'

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/ballpark-playing-surfaces-are-shrinking-in-a-surprising-way/

dr k

red = curve
blue = fastball
white = perfect alignment (410 in outfield for reference)

look at those release points, incredible pic.twitter.com/1q1opI2pN6

— cardinalsgifs (@cardinalsgifs) February 6, 2018

Love that kind of stuff. that Rivera NYMAG video where it had 1000 pitches all synced up was amazing

http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers-zaidi-fantasy-football-20180223-story.html

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/did-lenny-dykstra-extort-umpires/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/juiced-baseballs/

I saw that Dykstra story and didn't know where to put it. I was sure there was a "player police blotter" but I couldn't find it.