The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–DL and Call-Up Player Pace Comparisons–

When making player comparisons on fantasy statistics pages, it’s easy to get blinded by seasonal totals. Those work pretty well over the first month of the season, but now that we are a week into the second half, many players have experienced DL stints or have been called up since the start of the season. Even for players who have made a minimum stay on the DL, the lost plate appearances over a two-week period can be enough to hold them behind comparable players in the counting statistics.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–The Other Best Rotation in Baseball–

There are several reasonable answers to the question of which rotation is the best in baseball. Following their offseason addition of Max Scherzer, the Nationals’ starters have certainly lived up to expectations, Strasburg aside. Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke provide a pretty fearsome one-two punch for the Dodgers. Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco provide the same for the Indians, and though they may not have quite the same name recognition, it is their rotation that leads baseball with 9.3 strikeouts per nine. The Cardinals are the Cardinals. Their scouting and player development is so good that they can afford to trade Shelby Miller and lose Adam Wainwright to injury and still boast an elite rotation with arms like Lance Lynn, Michael Wacha, and Carlos Martinez picking up the slack.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

— Home Run Calls and Puts —

A lot can happen between now and July 31, but a lot will need to happen to flood the market with available players. The second Wild Cards have accomplished their goals of keeping more teams in the race, and even if they hadn’t, the AL has been so upside down this season that few teams will be confident that they should be sellers. Add to that the pressure that teams like the Red Sox, White Sox, and Padres face because of offseason win-now moves, and we may approach the deadline with as few as five or six teams willing to trade away players.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Reliever Rest–

The public debate of reliever usage tends to center on situational leverage, platoon advantage, and decision-making tied to the save statistic’s criteria. What is less discussed is reliever availability. We all have a vague notion that relievers who have pitched a lot recently are more l Read the rest of this entry »

The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Players Approaching Career Highs–

Bryce Harper hit his 22nd home run of the season on Tuesday, which tied his career high from 2012. But that actually isn’t what inspired this article. Instead, I noticed that Luis Valbuena’s two-homer day from earlier that afternoon increased his 2015 total to 16, which matched his career high from last season. The Astros are the biggest success story in baseball this season, but that total still shocked me. Meanwhile, I discovered that Harper and Valbuena are two of a bunch of players who are already threatening career highs in home runs or stolen bases this season.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–The Start After a No-Hitter–

No-hitters command a lot of attention from fans and writers and command a lot fantasy points in most formats, but I expect most fantasy players will take Chris Heston’s no-hitter as an interesting quirk rather than an indication that he deserves to shoot up starting pitcher rankings. As the platitudes go, many no-name pitchers threw no-hitters and did little else in their careers, and many of the best pitchers in baseball history never threw one at all.

The easy answer with Heston is that he is the next of the no-names. He is a 27-year-old rookie who was never highly touted as a prospect and never showed exceptional strikeout potential at any level of the minors. At 8.0 per nine, the strikeouts aren’t exceptional now, either, but the sum of all of his good-not-great parts is starting to look like a decent option even in shallower formats.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–League-Neutral FIP–

A few weeks ago, I was researching quality of opposition and stumbled upon the unsurprising conclusion that there are major differences in the AL and NL. For pitchers, one difference between the leagues is obvious. In the NL, they face opposing pitchers. In the AL, they face designated hitters.

It can be difficult to tease out the impact of that difference for pitchers in stats like ERA because runs are the result of a series of events that are not easily attributable to individual players. However, with FIP, pitchers are measured only by their strikeouts, walks, and home runs, each of which can be assigned to a specific batter. As such, you can adjust FIP for league by measuring those strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed by pitchers against only non-pitcher, non-DH batters. It does not wholly capture the differences in quality of competition between the leagues, but does account for the most glaring discrepancy in types of batters faced.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

—Enrique Burgos Speculation–

Even though Addison Reed had just lost his closer job, I didn’t think much of the fact that rookie reliever Enrique Burgos received the save for the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, his second of the season. As Benjamin Pasinkoff pointed out in the Bullpen Report, Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale told reporters that Brad Ziegler was his closer but that he wanted to avoid using him in that game since he had thrown 27 pitches the previous day. But then I happened upon the FanGraphs strikeouts per nine leaders for relievers so far this season.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Shift Candidates by Oppo%–

The question of whether teams should use defensive shifts against certain batters is complex. Even applying the term defensive shift fails to do the decision justice because defensive positioning is not limited to either yes or no. However, we do know that teams are more and more willing to deploy defensive shifts. According to the Fielding Bible—Volume IV, shifting has nearly doubled every season since 2011, and early indications are that trend will continue this season.

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The title of the article is an allusion to Schott’s Miscellany, which you should definitely check out if you never have and feel compelled to know that a group of larks is called an exaltation or that a member of the 32nd degree of Freemasonry is known as a Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

–Stolen Base Opportunities–

I did something similar to this a few weeks ago when I looked at RBI relative to plate appearances with runners in scoring position, which I used as an estimate of RBI opportunities. For stolen bases, I decided to define an opportunity as (1) a plate appearance that (2) features at least one received pitch—e.g. the first pitch was not put in play—where (3) the runner in question is on first base and (4) second base is open. Obviously, that’s imperfect for a variety of reasons. Not all plate appearances have the same number of pitches. Counts can matter. And sometimes runners steal third base. Still, I think it’s a decent attempt at a simple measure of how frequently a runner had the opportunity to attempt a stolen base.

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