Free Out Leaderboard: "Free outs" in baseball are strikeouts and popups. I would argue they should also include some groundballs but you're getting into a whole other debate there. Beyond the Boxscore had a leaderboard with who produces the most and least "free outs". This leaderboard is pretty easy to figure out. Just look at who has the highest K% and you have your leaderboard. Not surprisingly the batters who produce the least "free outs" create the most runs.
Position Player Pitching!: Is there anything better than a position player pitching? It happened on Wednesday afternoon when the Brewers called upon Martin Maldonado to give their relievers a break. He did pretty well for the Brew Crew.
Rating Local Announcers: I have my own personal list of announcers that enjoy and dislike. Awful Announcing though polled readers and came up with their own results. I can't really argue with any of their results except I would have had the Cincinnati Reds much lower than 15.
Best Investments: Jonathan Bernhardt of Sports on Earth takes a look at 5 free agents from the offseason that have had big return investments for their teams. The biggest surprise is definitely Aaron Harang because he was such a late pickup for the Braves. Also Nelson Cruz should never play the outfield again but the Orioles also have Delmon Young making their left field a smoldering boulder of suck.
10 Things BP Learned in April: The first month of the season has drawn to a close and the Baseball Prospectus crew talks about the ten things they learned in the month of April. Mainly we learned that the Diamondbacks are really bad and the Brewers are better than expected. Also Martin Perez is still living up to his expectations.
Lessons from Projections: Dan Szymborski talks about creating his own projections systems known as ZIPs. The two lessons I took from Dan's piece is that historical data sucks and there's still a lot of unknown when it comes to advance stats. Read this piece, it's worth it.
Top 150 Prospects: John Sickles released his top 150 prospects of the season and I have to say I completely disagree with the Yankees Tanaka being considered a "prospect". He was never meant to be a prospect. Prospects don't sign huge contracts and immediately play. Other than that I do suggest reading the complete list if you're into prospects.
The Best of the Weekend: A look at the best games and pitching matchups of the weekend.
Friday, Washington at Philadelphia, Strasburg vs Lee: Strasburg has the goofiest stats in my mind to start the season. His K% is at 35 and his BABIP is at .407 with an xFIP at 2.14. So basically Strasburg is either striking people out or he's getting blooped to death. Incredible. Cliff Lee is still Cliff Lee and that means he's always incredible.
Saturday, Tampa Bay at New York, Odorizzi vs Tanaka: The Rays pitching staff has been a mess this season. Jake Odorizzi and his 10.3 HR % isn't helping matters. The Yankees have be licking their chops thinking of Odorizzi and his HR % and that short left field porch.
Sunday, Oakland at Boston, Gray vs Lackey: Amazing how well Lackey has pitched since the fried chicken story. He's been the Red Sox most consistent pitcher and that has continued into this season. The A's have been a roll lately on the road coming off a stretch where they just swept the Rangers in Texas.
Hudson has been a much better investment than any of those guys.
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