Author: Ben

Will the Real Joey Gallo Please Stand Up

Joey Gallo, now several seasons into his Major League career and still just 26, has felt like a known commodity for years. He has proved himself to be a capable Major League regular, an...

MLB Debuts, by Season and Franchise

As the truncated 2020 regular season wraps up, it’s a good time to take a look at some of the trends that this unprecedented seasonal format has given way to. Among all these changes...

A Quick Zack Wheeler Update

Late last year, Zack Wheeler got paid. For many, the thought that Wheeler was worth 118 million dollars was a stretch. That’s no knock on the pitcher either: Wheeler had combined for 60 starts...

Launch Angles, Still Rising

The concept of launch angle has successfully embedded itself in the minds and lexicons of baseball players, coaches, and fans over the past decade. Several high-profile players have acted as ambassadors to the so-called...

The Five-Inning Start is On The Rise

This post piggybacks on a really interesting piece from Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs, who, a couple days ago, examined in depth the changing workloads of starting pitchers in 2020. Between a truncated “Summer Camp”,...

Universal DH and The Defensive Spectrum

Among the rule changes implemented for the abbreviated 2020 MLB season, the introduction of a universal DH is a particularly polarizing one. For now, the universal DH will take effect for 2020 alone, but...

The Modal Slash Line, 2010-2019

What follows was inspired by an interesting podcast episode by NPR’s Planet Money, which outlined one potential process for identifying “The Modal American.” The podcast’s creators suggested that, while people often refer to the...