At 55-56, the Milwaukee Brewers are on the fringes of both the division and wild card race, six back of both leaders. The Brewers have had a tough go of it this year, losing second baseman Rickie Weeks and being unable to shore up their concerning lack of starting pitching depth. An uninspiring deadline trade […]

Here is what John Smoltz has done so far this year: 40 IP 9 BB 33 K 8 HR 4.92 FIP 4.32 xFIP While he certainly hasn’t been pitching like he did in his prime, it’s clear that John Smoltz has had a pretty solid year. His K:BB ratio is actually above his career marks, […]

Recently, a close friend wrote in re an effort of mine over at RotoSynthesis — a short meditation on the possible fate of newly minted Yinzer Jeff Clement — he wrote: I think one of the best things about fantasy sports is getting over-involved with the careers of fringe major-leaguers. This affords one the unusual […]

Last night, Bobby Parnell made his first major league start for the New York Mets against the San Diego Padres. A young, tall, hard-tossing righty who came up the minor league track as a starter before moving to the pen in the majors last year, Parnell got the nod while starting in place of an […]

A Google search for “Alex Rios waivers” results in over 65,000 hits overall. Switch over to Google News and you get 680. Why? Why is the media and the blogosphere covering this story like he’s the second coming of Lou Gehrig? With the amount of press it’s getting one can only conclude that (A) Alex […]

For those who pre-purchased the 2010 THT Annual, there is a new Batted Ball Report available. This week’s edition takes a special batted ball look at the plethora of midseason trades.

In my article earlier this week, I looked at the age distributions of 2009 Triple-A teams. It was easy enough to generate a similar report for 2009 Double-A teams, so here it is. I’ve included the average age of the organization’s Triple-A affiliate in the rightmost column. Org Team Average Median

In my last article, I looked at how players regress to the mean, and how players on the borderline between the minors and majors might not have a readily identifiable mean to regress to. But what if we add in AA players? It seems that adding AA players does not give us a trimodal distribution; […]

Due to the length of the extra-inning affair between the Yankees and Red Sox, we got a preview of Junichi Tazawa’s stuff. Here’s his scouting report from SoxProspects.com: Tazawa makes use of an 88-92 mph fastball that works inward on righties. It flattens out at higher velocities. Presently it’s about average, but it has some […]

Brian Bannister was knocked out of his start Friday night after allowing five runs to the Oakland Athletics in the fourth inning. What happened? Well, it certainly didn’t help that Bannister threw only 20 of 36 pitches in that inning for strikes. He walked Tommy Everidge and Adam Kennedy, both of whom came around to […]