In Saturday’s White Sox-Angels game, a balk was called on Jose Quintana. Here’s the clip; here’s the situation:

Continue reading →

Too much going on for a full report, but I’ll just hang it up there and see how y’all whack it.

@Angels 6, White Sox 2: Chicago’s 3rd straight loss cut their division lead to 1 game in the loss column. In their last 4 games, they have 4 HRs and 8 runs. Angels gained a game on Oakland in the WC chase, but they’re 4 back in the loss column with no games left against the teams to need to catch.

• Continue reading →

ESPN.com reported that the Rays set the AL single-season record for staff strikeouts last night. The previous record was 1,266 by the 2001 Yankees and after last night the Rays’ team total was 1,275.

Strikeouts across MLB have increased at a ridiculous rate. In 2011, the MLB average was a record 7.1 strikeouts per 9 innings. That was an all-time record. This year? It’s 7.5 per 9.

Calculating out to another significant digit, 2012’s number is 7.54 K/9. In 2011, it was 7.13.  That’s a 5.8% increase over what was already a record number–and there are no obvious rules or game changes that would account for it.

To put it in further perspective, the 2012 Rays broke the season record despite having 11 games–6.8%–of their season left to play. They are on pace to finish with 1,367 strikeouts, which would break the old record by 8%. That’s as crazy as Mark McGwire hitting 70 homers to break the previous record of 61.

Want a little bit more? In addition to the Rays, this year’s staffs on the Tigers and Yankees are also on pace to break the 2001 record, and the Rangers’ is on pace to tie it. That’s 4 out of 14 AL teams on pace to tie or break the record.

It’s a dramatic shift, folks. The big questions are–how much further will strikeouts increase in the coming years and how will it change the game?

Note: Information that came out after the original post reveals that your humble narrator’s judgment was hasty. See bottom of post for update.

_______________

The Associated Press reports that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have reached an agreement that evades the possibility of drug-suspended Melky Cabrera being recognized as the National League batting champion:

Continue reading →

Since Major League Baseball went to an alignment of three divisions in each league, back in 1994, there have been a total of 550 post-season games played. A simple list of the number of those games won by each franchise is after the jump. Nothing complicated, just a format for expressing recent baseball history in a somewhat different manner than usual.  Starting at the beginning of the six-division era represents a particularly harsh dividing line for Toronto.  The Blue Jays were coming off back-to-back World Series Championships just when MLB shifted to the current three division per league alignment, but they haven’t been back to the post-season since. Continue reading →

Orioles 3, @Mariners 1 (11): Well, naturally.

• A noted philosopher‘s comment on Don Larsen‘s WS perfecto applies just as well to Baltimore‘s 15-2 record in irregular affairs: “Like Sophia Loren’s marriage to Carlo Ponti, the continuing popularity of Danny Thomas, and the political career of Spiro Agnew, there is no rational explanation for this. It just is.”
• Continue reading →

In 2011, there were five shortstops in the majors who topped 4 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), using Baseball-Reference’s formula:

Troy Tulowitzki 5.6 WAR
Asdrubal Cabrera 4.8
Jose Reyes 4.7
Yunel Escobar 4.4
J.J. Hardy 4.2

In the context of recent major league baseball, that was a perfectly normal number of shortstops to be in the 4.0 WAR and over range.  Indeed, over the past fifteen full seasons, there have been 82 player-seasons by shortstops of 4 or more WAR, an average of about 5.5 such player-seasons a year.  There have  been at least four shortstops to reach at least 4 WAR in each of the past 15 seasons, and in 2006 there were actually nine guys at short who  reached 4 WAR.  So how are major league shortstops doing in 2012 in this respect?  The answer after the jump. Continue reading →

As was widely reported last night, Derek Jeter has tied Lou Gehrig with the most 200-hit seasons by a Yankee. Each fellow now has 8 such seasons.

I got in a little Twitter debate last night about which guy has been more impressive in those 8 years.

(Jeter lovers, please read the very last sentence at the bottom before you leave a nasty comment.)

Continue reading →

Is it just me, or has this blog been on fire? Both the new and established writers are cranking it up and hitting triple digits on the radar gun.

Just a friendly reminder that you can help us out by hitting the “like” button on the Facebook ap down on the sidebar and by following me and the other writers on Twitter (you can find everybody’s Twitter handle on the ‘About’ page linked at the top.)

We have another surprise in the works–I won’t say too much other than that it takes advantage of one of the special talents of someone on our writing staff.

The Yankees are known for their unmatched post-season success, including the most World Series titles and appearances. In fact, the Yankees have lost more World Series than any other franchise has won.

This game is Jeopardy but, in this incarnation, could also be called box score sleuthing. There are many pieces to the game, each of which can be solved independently. So I expect this will work best as a group exercise with different individuals working on different pieces.

Following are a list of dates. These dates are the answers to Jeopardy questions. Your job is to determine the questions. Each question is in the form of “When was the last time a Yankee/the Yankees had a World Series game with …. ?”.

Note that the question format includes “a Yankee” rather than a specific name. Thus, none of the answers (er, questions) reference a specific player – so, nothing like “When was the last time in the World Series that Babe Ruth struck out with the bases loaded?”, or that sort of thing.

Thanks to everyone for playing. You found lots of interesting factoids that I never noticed. A box score is truly a treasure trove if you look closely. The questions and answers are posted after the jump. The ones you found are in black, and the remaining ones in blue.

Continue reading →