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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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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Final Trip Itinerary

by jakemintz

FINAL ITINERARY:

  • Sunday, July 7th

    • Baseball Prospectus Event at Nationals Park at noon

    • San Diego Padres at Washington Nationals at 1:35 PM

    • Leave Nats Game approximately 4 PM

    • Drive from Nats Park to Akron, Ohio (5:47)

  • Monday, July 8th

    • Leave Akron at approximately 8:30 AM

    • Drive from Akron, Ohio to Clinton, Iowa (7:50)

    • Cedar Rapids Kernels at Clinton LumberKings at 7:00 PM

    • Sleep in Clinton

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2013 First Annual MLB Draft Draft

by Jordan Shusterman

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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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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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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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Ben and Jerry’s MLB Flavors

by jakemintz

Everyone loves ice cream and more specifically, everyone loves Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Over the years Ben and Jerry have come up with countless revolutionary flavors. Cherry Garcia, Imagine Whirled Peace, and even a Dexter themed ice cream called Miami Slice. One area B&J’s totally forgot about was baseball, so we decided that we would do it for them. Here are some of the best ones we came up with:

Black Razz-Barry Bonds

-Raspberry Ice Cream with chocolate syrup swirls and chunks of OBP.

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