Mike Trout – Bat Flips and Nerds

A decade of baseball in 101 useless stats

January 13, 2020 Gavin Baseball, Opinion

On Sunday 4 April 2010, Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Josh Beckett induced weak contact from New York Yankees Derek Jeter in the first MLB play of the decade. Here are 100 more useless snippets of information for you. Unless

Who have been the second-half comeback kids?

September 18, 2019 Gavin Baseball, MLB UK, Opinion

After the dog days of the offseason, and then the seemingly never-ending schedule of meaningless Spring Training games, the regular season arrived and demanded the complete attention of the baseball world. By the end of April, the following was true…

The Called First Pitch Strike – Why?

July 30, 2019 Russell Eassom Baseball

I have a few bugbears when I watch a game of Major League Baseball, I feel most of these are derived from the fact that I have never been taught how to play the game or faced something being thrown

An Analytic Glance at the first “Half”

July 14, 2019 Russell Eassom Baseball

We have just started the second “half” of the MLB season. The reason for the air quotes is that the definition of half a season in MLB is determined by if a game was played before or after the All-Star

Talk the Talk and Intentionally Walk the Walk

May 18, 2019 Russell Eassom Baseball

Intentional walks or base on balls have been around for a long time in baseball. Early on in baseball, the catcher could set up much further away from the plate than they can do know. They would receive four wide

Early season stat leaders

May 12, 2019 Gavin MLB UK, Opinion

You know that Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger lead MLB with 16 and 14 home runs respectively. Without doubt, it is an incredible tally this early in the season, but you might not realise that Twins’ outfielder Eddie Rosario or

Can We Play You Every Week

April 21, 2019 Russell Eassom Analytics, Baseball

“Can we play you, can we play you, can we play you every week. Can we play you every week.” Those of you more familiar with British football will recognise this chant. It is one that the fans will sing

This year Albert Pujols will lose his crown as Player of the Century. You’ll never guess by whom.

March 16, 2019 Gavin MLB UK, Opinion

Clickbait headlines are detestable, but it was too difficult to resist. So the premise of the article is that Albert Pujols has been the best player this century, but he could be overtaken this season. Since Opening Day 2000, Pujols

JUST ACCEPT IT, PECOTA HATES YOUR TEAM

February 10, 2019 Gavin Baseball, MLB UK, Opinion

Baseball Prospectus has just released their PECOTA projections for 2019, and you know what? They hate your team. The funny thing is, PECOTA is not opinion, yet MLB players, managers and fans take it personally. An acronym for Player Empirical

Three minutes on the Los Angeles Angels

February 9, 2019 Gavin MLB UK, Opinion

It is hard to argue that the Angels were not the most exciting MLB team to watch last season: Shohei Ohtani pitching, Shohei Ohtani hitting, Andrelton Simmons’ wizardry at shortstop and of course, Mike Trout, the greatest player on the