It was a two-start stretch in June of 1938 that has since lived in baseball infamy. A rookie for the Cincinnati Reds, Johnny Vander Meer, completed what many to this day still believe is an untouchable feat: back-to-back no hitters. An accomplishment that seems more fairy tale than reality, this…
On the heels of Kansas City’s improbable postseason run in 2014 and now successful start to 2015, baseball has been further exposed to the importance of team defense. With an electrifying outfield headlined by 2014 Fielding Bible Award winners Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon, the Royals have owned the American League’s best defense since the…
Now that the 2014 major league season is down to the final four, we can reflect on how these four teams made it to the League Championship Series and how they stack up for a World Series run. To do so, I’ll look at the hitting, pitching, and defense of…
I was playing in a collegiate summer league at the time when I had a teammate that was in a slump. He said he was going to swing at the first pitch of his next at-bat no matter what. Shortly after proclaiming his odd strategy, he went to the plate,…
It was Monday, April 21st, 2014. Michael Choice of the Texas Rangers started running when the pitcher lifted his leg. However, the catcher stood out of his crouch at about the same time and slid away from the right-handed-hitting Elvis Andrus on a called pitch out. As the ball crossed…
The Mets finished the first month of the 2014 season with a winning record, despite just a .220 batting average as a team over their first 26 games, second worst in the National League. Needless to say, a lot of that early season success is due in large part to…
The usage of shifts in MLB has exploded this season. Teams are on pace to combine for more than 13,000 shifts on balls in play this year, up from just over 8,000 a year ago. Front offices and field staffs are shifting their defensive infield alignments as a result of…
Nearly a month into the MLB season, the signal in the Defensive Runs Saved data is beginning to break free of the noise. The elite defenders are steadily climbing toward the top of the leaderboards, while the less talented gloves are falling to the back of the pack. With that…
For most baseball fans, when you hear the name Adam Eaton, the first person that comes to mind is probably the 36-year-old right-hander who played a decade in MLB from 2000 to 2009. That Adam Eaton, a Washington native, had himself a respectable career. A former first-rounder, he was once…
The escalating use of defensive shifts across baseball during the past few seasons has been well documented, and in 2013, the Houston Astros were among the leaders when it came to implementing radical defensive alignments. A year ago, the Astros ranked fifth in baseball in defensive shifts on balls in play with 496, while…
