The history of head injuries to pitchers is pretty gruesome.  Despite this long record, it was not until recently that MLB approved optional padded cap for pitchers.  It isn’t rocket science, so it would not surprise me to learn that even our ancient simian relatives knew that padding reduces injuries.  However, the fundamental physics of […]

So, the site has been live for a little bit now. We think it came off pretty well, but podody’s nerfect, and we know that there are things that will change. So we want to make sure we keep hearing from you. We are hearing from you in the intro post, but it will continue […]

Baseball is unusual as team sports go.  For example, the limit lines are in play, not out of bounds.  The defense, not the offense, has the ball.  Finally, and in my view, the most distinguishing feature is the lack of a clock.  Some claim that baseball is freed from the tyranny of time, yet from […]

Larry Rocca is currently the Director of Development and Alumni Affairs at Georgetown Prep in Washington D.C., which seems like a very rewarding job since he gets to give back to his alma mater. He used to cover the Mets for the Star-Ledger (and briefly the Yankees for Newsday) from 1997-2004. Before that he was […]

The Cooperstown election results came out today, so it’s time to compare my predictions with reality. Here is how I stacked up: Player Me Reality Greg Maddux 99 97 Tom Glavine 94 92 Frank Thomas 85 84 Craig Biggio 76 74.8 Mike Piazza 71 62 Jack Morris 70 62 Jeff Bagwell 62 54 Tim Raines […]

I’ve seen Andruw Jones, Jim Edmonds, Devon White, Cesar Geronimo and even Willie Mays at the tail end of his career, but I can’t consider any of them the best defensive center fielder I’ve watched. That honor still belongs to Paul Blair, who died last week from a heart attack. When it comes to center […]

Trevor Bauer uploaded a video talking about his pitch design, including a ton of high-speed video focusing on how he actually releases the ball: The overlay video at the end is especially cool, with this map of his intended destinations for all of his pitches: His pitches in question are: {exp:list_maker}Four-seam fastball Two-seam fastball Cut […]

Here’s a little something you may not have known: on average, games get less critical as the game progresses. In other words, on average for all games, the ninth inning is actually less critical and tense than the first when measured correctly. To illustrate the point, here is a table of the average Leverage Index […]

We’ve heard the sexier names that have gone off the board this offseason: Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran. But in the midst of these bigger transactions, lesser-known players are still garnering major league contracts. Here’s some analysis on three major league acquisitions you may have missed that could have impact in 2014: 1) Giants […]

What a Tuesday we had. The MLB offseason hadn’t been too exciting up until this week, but things certainly are changing quickly. It seemed as though every time I logged on to Twitter, a new deal had been confirmed. Non-stop action. Since there were so many moves, I’m going to do a little lightning round […]