The MLB Thread

Those two home runs Hamilton hit at home last night are two more HRs than Hamilton in Anaheim in ALL of last season.

At 26-25, the tie for first is the worst record to lead the AL East on June 1 in the history of the division.

two things:

kind of looks like Hamilton was tanking with the Angels to get out of there…either that or he's back on the juice…

the clip of Ausmus and Price next to each other after Jobba blew the lead was priceless…

Hamilton out a month (hamstring).  Still being paid by Anaheim.

this was a great article about harper, trout, and pederson on their swing and approach: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mike-trout-bryce-harper-and-joc-pederson-on-the-top-hand/

watching joc pederson turn on a baseball reminds me of that beautiful griffey swing.

Carlos wrote:
joc pederson

Was I the only one who was shocked last season when Joc Pederson was called to find out he was was white?

Reggie Cleveland All Star for sure….

Now I'm going to read your article.

Fantastic information, though the inclusion of Joc is bit premature.

I used "The Making of a Hitter" by Jim Lefebvre to make my swing, and still recommend it to kids, though after reading this there have been a ton of advances since that book came out.  The ability to analyze swings with modern technology has changed everything. 

I was (and suppose still am) a strong left hand over top hitter (I'm a lefty/lefty) who was pure bat speed as I have very little upper body strength.  My bat speed through the zone was much faster than it should have been though, which produced a surprising amount of pop.  This has made me an absolutely horrendous golfer, though - too fast through the swing and too much push with my left (follow) hand.

I modeled my baseball around Chad Harbach's excellent The Art Of Fielding. Unfortunately, the character that drank all of his girlfriend's dead (gay) father's scotch resonated more with me than the elite shortstop.

Somehow I missed Trumbo being dealt to Seattle yesterday.  Good pickup for them, but he is just like every other 1B/OF/DH that hasn't worked for them.  Low OBP and AVG, but a good number of solo HRs. 

Sitting in the box seats at the O's the other day I was saying that I'm surprised they haven't had more accidents and put up netting like the NHL.  I think that will happen now.

vansmack wrote:

Carlos wrote:
joc pederson

Was I the only one who was shocked last season when Joc Pederson was called to find out he was was white?

a scrappy white boy, nonetheless!

vansmack wrote:
Fantastic information, though the inclusion of Joc is bit premature.

also agree, fangraphs has been drooling over him since the end of last season so it's really no surprise.

vansmack wrote:
Last night's Vinnie Gem:

Vin Scully on the Normandy Landings of 1944.  And fans running on to the field.

Anybody else following the draft tracker and watching College Baseball?  Prolly not….

Shortstops go 1,2 and 3 with 4 in the top 10.  Strange.

I'm not sure what's weirder…that the Atlanta Braves have been using Nick Markakis as their cleanup hitter, or that they've continued using his as their cleanup hitter in spite of him having ZERO home runs (and a .369 slugging pct) 56 games into their season.

A no-hitter with no walks but three HBPs is one of the weirdest statistical abnormalities in a while.

The Cardinals are in BIG trouble.  HUGE.

vansmack wrote:
The Cardinals are in BIG trouble.  HUGE.

Fascinating story.

It'll be real interesting to see the amount of vitrol and coverage compared to deflategate considering one is an actual landmark scandal by a beloved team and one is complete nonsense by a hated program. Prepare to see some interesting mental gymnastics from idiots everywhere.

Julian, wrote:
Fascinating story.

It does explain how those player notes were leaked a few years ago….

vansmack wrote:

Julian, wrote:
Fascinating story.

It does explain how those player notes were leaked a few years ago….

Well aren't they saying that leak is what predicated the investigation?

The deadspin story comments are absolute gold. Some highlights:

I?m sure that it?s just a big misunderstanding. Jesus probably just wanted access to some of the Astros? proprietary religious player data and asked his duly designated representatives on Earth, the St. Louis Cardinals organization, to take care of getting it for Him. Jesus could never want the Cards to do anything wrong.

The Cardinals built that network from the ground up. Really a class organization. The Astros bought their network. No values in the ball club, probably why they got hacked. Cardinals did it the right way.

?The Cardinal Way?

Ask any person in St. Louis to define ?the Cardinal Way,? and they will tell you that it?s a style of hacking that both pays homage to and respects the fundamentals of breaching computer security dating back to when the opposing team began digitally storing scouting reports within data networks in 1994. The style of hacking is described in phrases like ?password cracking? and ?brute force attacks.?

For any player scouted by opposing teams, the Cardinal Way is an 86 page handbook that outlines exploitation of each teams databases in areas ranging from vulnerability scanners to packet analyzers, spoofing attacks and computer worms, as well as the manner in which the Cardinals cyber scouts should conduct themselves on ?the ?Net.?

From a business standpoint, the handbook defines the organizational philosophy, a philosophy that places a greater emphasis on misappropriating digital scouting records and player transaction information from opposing teams than on generating home grown data from within the Cardinals organization. It?s the Cardinal Way.