B4B

Lets run down yesterday’s (April 3 - Opening Day) MiLB box scores, and see if we can spot the next Ryan Braun. This might turn into a daily or weekly series; but I’ve made promises I couldn’t keep before, so don’t count on it.

Extra Base Hits per Plate Appearance (XBH/PA) is the single greatest indicator of how ready a position player is. For pitchers; it’s probably K/BB ratio.

Batters:

Pitchers:

I tried to keep this list exclusive to minor leaguers who have a shot at making a major league roster this season. What prospects should I include in these reports?

Johnny Cueto retired the first 15 batters he faced, and struck out 10 batters without allowing a single walk; both record breaking accomplishments in a major league debut.

• Fantasy Gameday talks about Cueto’s value long term. And brings up legitimate concerns about his frame, age, and susceptibility to inducing the fly ball.
• Roto Athority offers some quality advice on what type of players should, or shouldn’t be dropped for Cueto. Seamless Baseball says “Not so fast…”
• Crooked Pitch gives 4 reasons why Cueto should be added to your team (especially in deep leagues)
• and Razzball provides a nice observational breakdown of what happened during the game.

Matt Sisson sits down with Rob Neyer, to discuss baseball, and Neyer’s latest book: Big Book of Baseball Legends (The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else)

Here are some of my favorite parts:

(Q) What record in baseball history would you say is the most unlikely to be broken?

(RN) Anything related to starting pitchers’ workloads: starts, innings, complete games, wins, losses, etc.

These statistics are so era-dependent, that you’d have to imagine some kind of adjustment made–in the official record books–to give the 21st century major leaguers a chance.

(Q) First word or words that come to mind when you think of these players:

Q Ted Williams

(RN) Hitter

Q Joe DiMaggio

(RN) Graceful

Q Bert Blyleven

(RN) Terribly, terribly unappreciated

Q Derek Jeter

(RN) Terribly, terribly overrated … but still great

Q Barry Zito

(RN) Toast

Q David Ortiz

(RN) Best free agent signing, ever

We definitely agree on Zito. And the David Ortiz signing back in 2003 (1 year 1.25 million), is the single biggest reason the Red Sox have won 2 world series championships recently.

“Dusty Baker was calling for Edwin Encarnacion to bunt with the team down two runs, no outs and two men on (first and second). Encarnacion looked like he had never been asked to bunt in his life and gave up two strikes. He then CRUSHED a Lyon hanger to end the game after the bunt sign was taken off. Baker wins in spite of himself and Lyon looked awful (as expected).

My favorite part of the ordeal was that Jeff Brantley had been dogging Encarnacion all night long for various different things that Brantley deemed unworthy caliber for a Major Leaguer. He even mocked him when Justin Upton hit a slow roller up the line and Encarnacion couldn’t beat him with the throw. Brantley’s a real dick when he doesn’t like how someone plays, and Encarnacion showed him up bigtime in the end. I imagine that Brantley probably echoes the sentiments of the Reds and even Baker, too. Man, I hate some of the old regime in baseball sometimes. - Bodhizefa

Here’s a video of the event

I agree with this too much. The old baseball regime was once tolerable, but their act is getting old quick. These color commentators/managers/coaches are so proud and clueless simultaneously.

“Edwin Encarnacion hit a walk-off, three-run home run. It was not only the most important hit so far this year according to WPA, but also the biggest hit of Encarnacion’s career by a long shot. His previous single most important hit was a bases clearing double all the way back in September of 2005 worth .45 wins. Tonight’s home run was worth .62 wins. -Fangraphs blog.

Fangraphs is showing WPA data in player cards now; it’s a great way to get an idea of how important certain sequences in a game are. It estimates the contribution each player has made to his team’s wins.

By the way, with the latest additions to Fangraphs (pitcher MPH data, 5 projection systems consolidated, and many other great statistics) is there any reason to use some of the other sites player cards anymore?

People are paying full price for a great product (in theory), but are being used as beta testers at the expense of their own time and money. This is more excusable for mid to low level businesses attempting to get a remarkable product off the ground; but for an established brand like Major League Baseball, it reeks of greed, and lack of foresight.

MLB’s online strategy seems to be what many companies’ strategy was in the 90s: Launch a website that serves as nothing more than a billboard that pushes their own agenda.

I don’t think people care about how awesome MLB thinks it is, and I certainly don’t think people want to be ostracized, and alienated when trying to figure out why their $119 investment isn’t living up to its billing. Just try finding and contacting their customer support; it’s a joke.

MLB should be taking advantage of what the web is today: the Social Web. A web that makes it easier than ever to communicate with, and learn about customers. It’s far too costly (long-term) for any company to give “every day Joes” like me, a reason to write a post like this. And I’m not a lone.

Have you had any problems with MLB TV?