Category Archives: #analysis

Actually attempting to analyze baseball (imagine that)

These Cleats Are Made For Walking: Blah

by Jordan Shusterman

I’ll be honest, there isn’t much standing out to me on this fine Monday. The bottom of the walk leaderboard isn’t nearly as hilarious as it usually is, so I’ll just review the usual and mention a few new names.

  • Puig update: Miraculously, Yasiel Puig walked twice on Saturday. These were his first two unintentional walks of the year. He’s at 78 plate appearances on the season.
  • Jeff Keppinger walked two more times last week. He’s now got a total of six walks through 228 plate appearance. The White Sox are also not playing him very much anymore :(

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Buxton Watch: 15 Days To Go

by Jordan Shusterman

As some of you may know, Jake and I are going on a trip this summer. The beginning of that trip includes driving approximately 13 hours over two days on a magical quest to see Twins uber-prospect Byron Buxton play against the Clinton LumberKings in Clinton, Iowa on Monday, July 8th.There’s one problem: Buxton is way way way too good for the Midwest League. Through 67 games, Buxton is triple-slashing .34o/.429/.555. He’s also stolen 32 bases, drawn 43 walks and scored 67 runs. He’s too good, and he should be promoted.

Last week was the Midwest League All-Star break. It was assumed by most prospect enthusiasts that Buxton would be promoted to High-A Fort Myers after the break. By some miracle (see what I did there (they’re the Fort Myers Miracle)), Buxton remains in Cedar Rapids. Since the break, Buxton is 3-12 with three walks and three stolen bases. Last night, he hit his ninth triple of the year.

After his non-promotion, Twins assistant GM Rob Antony said “it won’t be long” before Buxton is bumped up.

Basically, as much as we love Buxton demoralizing Low-A competition, we’re desperately hoping that he remains at the level for three more weeks before heading off to the Florida State League. If he gets promoted, we’ll see be able to see guys like Max Kepler, Gabriel Guerrero, and such at Clinton, but the experience of seeing Buxton in person is something that could not be topped.

So I’m gonna be posting a daily update of what Buxton did the night before. Let’s cross our fingers for a sudden slump. The Buxton Watch begins.

15 Days To Go.

Highlighting the Worst Hats In Baseball: Round Two

by Andrew Meyer
GURL

EY GURL

Oh god this trailer. Just Scorsese, and Kanye, and Leo, and McConaughey. Man that looks…… Wait, baseballs. So, unlike Round One, which was just a celebration of terrible things, all future rounds will be for one specific team (unless I get bored,  until I get bored). So then, through the magic of random pickings, today, we get none other than the Mets. LET’S GET TO THE HATS.

Hello, MS Paint

New York Mets MLB C-Dub 59FIFTY (100% Wool, $35)

Conceptually, this hat is fine. Simple red wool hat with a white logo. But then it gets made, and man that logo is garish. Like made by a 13 year old in GIMP who only knows what the outline of the logo is. The white on white look here is just really bad, and takes away from what could be an average hat.

So This Is A Thing

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These Cleats Are Made For Walking: Puig Approaches

by Jordan Shusterman

This has been a fun journey this year, keeping track of walk totals on a weekly basis. It gives me an unexplained amount of joy to check FanGraphs on Monday mornings to see who’s been impatient this past week. Yasiel Puig, an undeniable fan of CFB, has clearly taken note of this and has decided to pitch in by allowing me to use his name, Yasiel Puig, in this post.

Thanks, Yasiel Puig. Thank you for not being unintentionally walked once through your first 50 major league plate appearances.

We’ll obviously be watching Yasiel Puig, like the rest of the world, in his KeppQuest to walkless nirvana.

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2013 First Annual MLB Draft Draft

by Jordan Shusterman

“blarghabfjkasnhjbadsdjnaskd”

So the draft happened about a week and a half ago, and it got us thinking. What other fun stuff could we draft ? The possibilities are/were endless, but we decided on drafting the obvious: other drafts. The goal was to build the best possible 25 man major league roster using only players selected in the first round of each draft between the years 2000 – 2011. We decided to exclude this year’s draft and last year’s draft on account of it’s way too early to even judge what those players are. We decided to include 2011 since it’s actually produced a few major leaguers already. Also, our rosters must include one designated hitter, two catchers, five bench players, three relievers, six starters, and a closer. But we got creative. To the picks!

  • 1st PICK (JAKE): 2005 draft

This was an easy pick, as it remains the most loaded first round we’ve seen in a long time. Jake immediately receives four of the best players in baseball in Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Andrew McCutchen and Justin Upton. Not to mention Jay Bruce, Jacoby Ellsbury, Alex Gordon and Ryan Zimmerman. It was a crazy year on the position side, but this round definitely lacked pitching. The best pitchers taken were probably Matt Garza and Ricky Romero, neither of which made Jake’s final squad.

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Tales of #slack: The Josh Hamilton Experience

by jakemintz

Everybody takes a break at work. Every day, we all get a little bit lazy for a couple of minutes. We lose concentration and slack off on our work. This fact is the only thing connecting Josh Hamilton to all of us regular humans. Until the day that the sun shrivels up like a raisin and we all die, Josh Hamilton will give away at-bats. I can’t promise many things in life, but I can say with certainty that day in and day out, Hamilton will show a distinct lack of #want, usually to a lefty. So without further ado, I present the first At-Bat Giveaway of the year.

Pitch 1

Count: 0-0

Pitch: 79 MPH Slider

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These Cleats Are Made For Walking: A New Contender

by Jordan Shusterman

Don’t have a ton of time for today’s walk-total mockery, but I have to point out a certain Yankee who is following in Kepp’s footsteps.

The New York Yankees recently called up third baseman David Adams from Triple-A. He was sporting a solid .897 OPS there before being called up, but Adams has begun has major league career with zero walks through his first 71 plate appearances. 

He’ll have to work on that. In other news, our hero Jeff Keppinger didn’t manage a walk for the second consecutive week, keeping his total at two through 201 plate appearances. 

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Highlighting the Worst Hats In Baseball: Round One

by Andrew Meyer

All of these hats are better than what is coming

By Andrew Meyer

Hello CFB readers. While Jake gave me an introduction earlier, I was (and still am) busy with school, and thus posting has been something hard to get around too while I work on projects/have panic attacks/wonder why the inevitable heat death of the universe is so far off.

I will do a formal introduction later on, but there is something much more important to discuss. Hats.

But while most talk of hats is joyous, there is also the dark side of hats, and the goal of this series is to highlight the worst that can be offered. Since this is the first entry, I will keep it short, plus I should be writing an English paper right now.

Note, it is “straw textured”

First off we have….. this…. wow. It’s official name is Miami Marlins MLB Straw-Fit Cap, and it is $38, and is 70% Paper. Never wear this outside, in any situation actually. The Marlins are kind of an easy target, and there are several other ones on the store that are worthy of inclusion, but this….. wow. It actually is not the worst Marlins hat I have ever seen, but it is close. Who is this targeted toward?  Like really? I cannot handle this. MORE THAN HALF OF THIS IS PAPER, THIS HAT HAS 20 GRADE DURABILITY. The actual Marlins Logo also looks bootleg here, and if they are going for this aesthetic, why use the default colors? Like, how does this happen?

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These Cleats Are Made For Walking: Jeff Keppinger Is Still Amazing

by Jordan Shusterman

We’re about nine weeks into the 2013 season, and every player with at least 70 plate appearances have managed at least two walks. Doesn’t mean we can’t mock those at the bottom of my favorite leaderboard ! Let’s take a quick look.

Our all-time favorite Jeff Keppinger didn’t manage a single walk last week. He’s up to 190 plate appearances and still has only two walks. 

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Why Did I Watch Rockies-Astros?

by jakemintz

You know how when you are a little kid and you walk into your parents room and they’re watching something too “grownup” for you? Maybe it’s The Wire, maybe its The Godfather, but whatever it is, you aren’t old enough. It probably has either guns, boobs, or drugs, or if you’re lucky, some combination of the three. You feel excluded and left out, but you know that your parents are trying to protect you. So what the hell mom, where were you when I was watching that entire Rockies-Astros series? Why didn’t you protect me?

The Astros won three of four, including both games in Coors. I watched every single minute of the first game of the series; the 12 inning classic that almost melted my brain. So let me ask a question: Why in hell did I watch so much of this series?

Erik Bedard doesn’t know.

To be fair, there were some great plays. Chris Carter had a beautiful strikeout. Wilin Rosario let some balls by him… probably. And Tulo had one of those awesome jump throws he always does. Check it out.

Wait what? Oh crap. That’s totally Nolan Arenado hitting the backstop. Why was I watching these games again? Rafael Betancourt do you know why?

He has no idea. Neither do I.