A Walk is as good as a hit or something like that

The phrase that every young hitter hears from Little League all the way to the majors.


Be patient, a walk is as good as a hit.


There are merits to that phrase, but one must contextualize it, before applying it, here is what I mean. A Home Run is better than a Walk correct, and a HR is a hit therefore a walk is not as good as a hit.


The more accurate saying would be a walk is as good as a single with no RISP,. Ptoducing the same outcome, except for a possible 1rst to 3rd, but who's gonna say that, it doesn't sound good it's weird. When a manager, hitting coach, whoever, says that to a hitter their goal is getting the player to be more patient, take the free base when there's nothing to hit, take what the pitcher gives you and go with it.


As you all probably know by now, I'm a big believer in high OBP players, today I want to explain my thought process behind this belief. I always like to start by stating that baseball game has no clock, it's a game of outs, whoever scores the most runs by the 27th out wins the game ansy how do teams score runs? By getting on base it's the only way. There are multiple ways to get on base, but walking is a good, easy one that has little to no interference with your other ways of getting on.

Walking highly benefits power hitters because they usually don't bat for high averages and if you hit .230 and have a low BB% it almost doesn't matter how much power do you have. Now if you have a 15.0 BB% then you are a productive hitter..


For the high AVG hitters as I said, a walk is as good as a single with no RISP which is the situation for these guys most of the time, how many times does Dee Gordon come up with 2nd and 3rd occupied, rarely, so there's really no excuse for a bad BB%, unless you`re peak, Ichiro Suzuki.




My second point and here is where the stats come in. I decided to look back at the last 50 years, which to me is a good number, the game before then in the dead ball era and in the Williams/DiMaggio years was so different that i decided to leave them out, plus 50 years is a good sample size right, anyway, take a look at this.


(Min. 3500 PA)



There are 305 hitters since 1967 with a 10.0 BB%, such mark is the lowest standard for above-average walk percentage, among those 305, guess how many have a career wRC+ below 100?


Only 38.


That's a little under 12.5 percent, the vast majority of them, had low career averages and power who barely scraped the .100 ISO mark, think Robbie Grossman with a much longer career and slightly less power, to name a few:


Wayne Garrett, Mark McLemore, Walt Weiss, Jose Offerman, Luis Alicea and etc.


Looking at it from a different angle, during the same time span, 79 hitters had a career wRC+ of 130 or higher, a really great mark, left for the best of the best, guess how many of them had BB% below 10.0, just 7, them being:

BB% and wRC+


Mike Piazza 9.8, 140

Ryan Braun 8.2, 139

Vladimir Guerrero 8.1, 136

Buster Posey 9.5, 135

George Brett 9.4, 132

Rod Carew 9.6, 132

Tony Gwynn 7.7, 132

And among those Braun's K% at 18.4, Piazza at 14.4 and Posey at 12.0 are the only 3 with K% above 10


Factoring in the league average K% when Piazza played and right now for the other two. those numbers are pretty low. The other 4, all unquestionable Hall of Famers. amongst the best pure hitters in the history of the game, with ridiculous BB/K ratios.


What does all of this screams at you, the certainty that great hitters walk, simple as that, it's so important, and the better hitter you are, the easier it is, the walks are there you just have to take it, can you imagine how great Manny Machado would be if he had better plate discipline.


Closing point, consider this, Votto and Cabrera have very similar career numbers, right.


AVG: Votto .313   Miggy .317

SLG: Votto .541.  Miggy .553

K%: Votto 17.7   Miggy 17.1

ISO: Votto .227.  Miggy .236

wRC+: Votto 158   Miggy 149


Not the best example but I'm a big Votto fan and wanted to do something realistic, none of the statistics above are cumulative stats, but rather career averages, so how can Cabrera possess the higher average, better power numbers and still fall 9 percentage points behind Joey in wRC+?


Basically, because Votto gets on base quite more

.426 to .395.

Walks are almost solely responsible for Votto being ahead of Cabrera as the slightly better career hitter. Joey also better in wOBA

.412 to .400.


My main goal in this article was to empathize the importance of BB, I'm positive, that such goal was accomplished, any doubts, comments, and suggestions you have, express them in the comment section and I will clear them, by agreeing with you, if you agree with me, or by explaining it to you, why you're wrong, if you dare to disagree with me, as a wise man once said, "If I was wrong, don't you think, I would've known it."



Quote of the day, by the great Kenny "The Snake" Stabler: "Throw deep"


It's pure, simple and wise.



Hit me up on Twitter i am @E_Max27

Photos in my backyard

Hi everyone among many things I also work as a photographer. These are just some pictures I took in my backyard these last couple of days. I hope you enjoy it.

Note: If you liked the photos and wish to buy any either express yourself in the comment section or send me a DM on Twitter, I'm @E_Max27 if you generally liked the photos but you're looking for something else let me know what it is I'm sure we can get something done.

Appreciate the imperfection, after all, that's all you see.

Hey Man Jump on The Flyball Bandwagon

Hi everyone I am going to throw a name at you, one who unless you're an Indians fan or spend a lot of time on Baseball Savant, will not know, he is a 3B/Corner Outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, his name is Yandy Diaz.


Now what makes Yandy Diaz so special that I am writing a piece about him, he signed as an amateur free agent out of Cuba in 2013 for 300k, you could always find him among Cleveland's top 20-30 prospects but he only went as high as 7th and because his debut at the majors came as a 25-year-old, no one ever paid too much attention to him.




Here's how he was graded by FanGraphs as a prospect.


Hit: 40/45

Game Power: 30/40

Raw Power: 50/50

Speed: 50/50

Field: 55/60

Throws: 70/70

Future Value: 45




Scale: 20/80     Right Now/Potential


No one's going to think too much of that, strong arm, some raw power, but other than that, very meh.


Because of my Baseball Savant mention earlier you probably have figured it out that he stood out in some StatCast area, and it actually is very simple.


Diaz hits the ball very hard. Check out some examples:

This is a Double Play GB against Zack Greinke at a 105.9 MPH Exit Velocity

This is a RBI Double against Chris Sale at a 101.1 MPH Exit Velocity

Lastly a RBI GB single against Jaime Garcia at a 107.6 MPH Exit Velocity

He also had 2 Batted Balls against Yu Darvish off 101 and 107 MPH Exit Velocity, a 99 one against Archie Bradley and a 108 one against David Robertson, even someone very skeptical, will admit, this is an impressive feat, but with so many GBs you`ll get results like the Greinke DP on very well hit balls, dude you`re not Dee Gordon, launch that ball up.

Among all qualified hitters in the majors this year his Avg Exit Velocity of 91.5 ranks as the 8th highest, sandwiched in between Stanton and Goldschmidt, his problem is very simple he makes Eric Hosmer look like Ryan Schimpf, someone in that Cleveland organization should put him aside and say:


Son, STOP HITTING THE BALL ON THE GROUND. 59.0 GB%, are you joking with me.


Among all hitters with at least 30 Batted Ball Events he was the only one in MLB to avg more than 90 MPH on balls on the ground, 90.8 to be exact and lastly he was one of 6 players to have at least half of their batted balls at 95 MPH+, 50.8% to be exact.


You might say well, this is all small sample size, but take a look at his minor league play.


In AAA this year on 85 games he managed a:


350/454/460 slash line on a .412 BABIP, 163 wRC+ on a 63.5 GB%.


Are you kidding me, a 163 wRC+ on a 63.5 GB%, that's insane, he had seasons along the same stat line the year before, split between AA and AAA, 2015 in AA, and 14 in A+.


His success alone at hitting the ball hard, with nothing pointing towards an adjustment in his Launch Angle, led Steamer to give him the following projection to 2018:


288/373/400 Slash Line

11.5 BB%   18.9 K%

.112 ISO   .350 BABIP

.339 wOBA   109 wRC+

105 Games   422 PA   2.1 WAR


What does this show you, is that he is so good and has so much potential that he is projected to be an above-average hitter all while completely pounding the ball on the ground and basically dismissing all the power that resides on that bat, his raw power grade, and his exit velocity numbers are irrefutable evidence he has the power, is just physically impossible to hit for power with this GB%.


I know fixing such issues is a tough task, but with so, so many hitters adjusting for higher launch angles and the so-called "Flyball Revolution" with the whole the ball is juiced talk, Yandy is literally the perfect candidate and with this adjustment could truly become a great hitter.


Feel free to comment, subscribe, suggest and if you prefer hit me up on Twitter I'm @E_Max27.


I do not own any of these images/videos, they`re a property of MLB and are here for illustrative purposes only




See Y`all.

Addressing embarrassment and all that comes with it

Hi to all of you reading this. Today I want to discuss the topic of being embarassed. Mistakes and screw ups aside there are two ways of being embarassed. Let's name them shall we.


1, You are embarassed for doing something you like but that it's something considered socially awkward, as I said before your taste constantly conflicts with what it's generally viewed/rated as good or bad, the same goes for not doing something, you shouldn't be forced into something you don't like just because the general perception on it is a good one.


2, You are embarassed for doing something that conflicts with your personality, through a number of reasons we often find ourselves doing something that it's not our thing per say.



In other words everybody has their own view of the world, what kind of music is good, what kind sucks, the same for books, movies pretty much everything and sometimes for a friend, or maybe to prove a point we go outside our views and we often become embarassed while running into someone that sees us doing something we consider lousy.


In both cases you shouldn't, yeah it's easy to say it, everyone has heard that nonsense, put yourself in that situation. Embarassement is just shame and no one should feel shame for either of those reasons.


Ignoring for a second the fact that attempting to be socially accepted in all you do and avoiding any possible embarassement is a very stupid thing to do, well no one is, ever.


Everyone gets shit at some point, that situation when you'll be made fun of, it's inevitable and with that in mind embrace it. Determine your own actions and don't be embarassed of that.


Knowledge of a subject that interest you or lack there of the same that does not interest you are equally good things.


PS: I am aware of the fact i often struggle to present my thoughts in the best way for you (reader) and that happens for a number of things:


1, Writing on your cellphone sucks. That frustates me, the frustation often gets in the way of my writing.

2, When I'm not frustated, I also do not take thid too seriously. Why? Becauee i don't with everything. Why should I? You get my point, if I make an arbitrary writing mistake here and there whi cares. The rules of a language are often arbitrary and constructed by regular people at some point in time. Let's focus on bigger things, better things, than picking on commas and proper phrasing.



Find your passion!

Pile of words that rhyme-ish=Poem from the guy who's writing this

Before I get started let me clarify that I'm not giving up on the baseball articles. I goy some stuff coming in these next few days.


Including but not limited to:


The Mike Moustakas situation and which teams screwed up by not giving him a decent-ish offer. Carlos Gonzalez got more guaranteed money than him for crying out loud.


The Greg Holland situation woll be talked about as well.


5 over/unders to bet on. 5 to avoid.


Award and postseason predictions.


That and more so stay tuned. Leave any suggestions in the comment section.


Right now I feel like publishing this poem/song/pile of words that may or may not rhyme I wrote. It's quality is of little significance to me. It makes me feel good and that's my objective.


Enjoy it.

You

I have waited a while

How long I don't know

Just to see you smile

That itself makes me whole

Forever I have wondered

What it'd feel like

To love someone

More than all in life

I cannot begin to explain

Nor can i hope to comprehend

The Truth is, I know that's all

I don't need to understand

You change my perception

My perception of time

What i was before you

Merely a footnote on my own life

Let’s talk soccer, the Uefa Champions League to be more exact

I decided to bring soccer into the mix as one of the topics in my articles. With that in mind, I'd like to take this post to discuss the UCL (Uefa Champions League).

As you all know the UCL is the most popular yearly soccer event in the world bring in together 32 of Europe's finest. Meaning 32 of the World's finest.

We are 3 quarters of the way in through the round of 16, winner advances to the quarterfinals with 4 games left.

Let's go through each matchup and analyze it. First, the four already decided.



Liverpool vs Porto

LIV @ POR: 5-0
POR @ LIV: 0-0

As it was the case with other matchups it took only one game to decide this one. Liverpool went into Portugal and shocked Porto with an outstanding display of offense, Porto actually got off to a competitive start in that game but they just couldn't hold up.

Despite what a lot of people may have led you to believe, Coutinho wasn't the reason for all that was good with Liverpool. Sure he is a good player, sure he is missed but the offense can work without him, especially with Salah playing out of his mind, most of Liverpool'sstruggles came from a poor unreliable defense (unrelated to Coutinho) so as long as they play well the team should perform at a high level.

The second game was a fill-in basically, not much to take from it. Also, start Casillas. Always start Casillas.



Manchester City vs Basel

MCI @ BAS: 4-0
BAS @ MCI: 2-1

This was one of the matchups along with Bayern against Besiktas where we all know that a team was clearly outmatched, Guardiola's squad is so superior and it proved that by ending the confront in one game, it was nice to see if Gundongan scoring twice. Very talented player plagued by injuries.

Hopefully, Guardiola is able to give Gabriel Jesus some minutes and eventually he bounces back to form, they'll need him later.

Basel got a confidence boost with a win at Manchester. But don't read too much into that.



Real Madrid vs Paris Saint-Germain

PSG @ RMA: 1-3
RMA @ PSG: 2-1

This confront was the big highlight, could PSG get over that hump and win it all after the fiasco last year? Well no.

The French squad wasted a huge chance in the first game where after scoring on the 1st half giving up the lead on a stupid penalty and dominating early in the second they started to play for the result, opportunities wasted aside, taking Cavani out for Meunier was a bad move and on the blink of an eye Real scored twice taking a commanding lead.

The second game exposed how badly coached PSG really is, the team's repertoire is:

Give the ball to the forwards and sees what happens.

First off starting with 3 defensive midfielders and two wingers with no one to infiltrate the defense that's just damn and it was very easy to defend for Madrid that used Vasquez and Asensio brilliantly to stop the play in the wings.

PSG needs a better Head Coach and could use a midfielder. A guy like James Rodriguez not he per say just one with his style of play.


Tottenham vs Juventus

TOT @ JUV: 2-2.
JUV @ TOT: 2-1.

An injustice was done here as the Spurs clearly outplayed their opponent but got eliminated due to two complete collapses. Sleepwalked through the first 10 minutes in Italy costing them 2 stupid goals where was the defense on the first one, come on, they managed to comeback dominating the rest of the game scoring twice securing a very nice result.

Back in England it looked like an easy win as Tottenham cruised through the first 60 or so minutes and then they collapsed yet again, it took 4 minutes and it was 2-1 Juventus.

They managed another comeback dominating the last 20 minutes but with zero balls on the net. Which means Juventus advances to get mashed by a Spanish team another day as they always do.

At least Tottenham beat Real Madrid.

Note: Chiellini's open hand made contact with the ball twice, it wasn't called. At least I think it was him.

The next four will come right after the matches are over. Probably Thursday.

The Ultimate Free Agent Signing

In all sports, every GM's job is basically to accumulate talent, all you can do really is build the most talented team and try to win it all, it's no guarantee, but it's obviously the best path.

When acquiring talent you usually have to give up something, it's all about what you give up, the more you give the more you expect to get, for instance, Carlos Correa is great, but he came at a cost, the number one overall pick, a very valuable pick which you expect to get a great player from, Albert Pujols, on the other hand, was a star in St Louis for many years and he came at the cost of a 13th round pick, which no one reallly expects anything from. A lot of the GM's job is trying to acquire talent without giving up talent.

I want to talk today about one of the greatest accomplishments ever in terms of acquiring talent, throughout history you'll find a lot of times, teams getting lucky with fringe players turning into stars, whether is Justin Turner and Chris Taylor in LA or Kyle Hendricks in Chicago, I'm talking about a player who was already great and outpitched his salary.

I am talking about the ultimate free agent signing. What every GM dreams of when that star player signs his name on the paper.



On December of 2012, the Dodgers and their at the time new ownership made a splash in the free agent market signing the best player available, Zack Greinke to a 147/6 deal with a player opt-out at the end of the third year, now we all know he opted out and wound up only pitching three years in LA, let's analyze those three seasons.

Keep in mind, Zack wasn't compensation eligible, so all that it cost to get him was money and in those three seasons, he made 70 Million Dollars, averaging 23.3 a year. Below you'll see his numbers and how they ranked in baseball throughout that period.

2nd in ERA 2.30

5th in WHIP 1.03

2nd in ERA- .63

2nd in RE24 (Run Expectancy) 96.22

2nd in RA9-WAR 24.5

3rd in Baseball Reference WAR 17.5


For some context, that much WAR for that much money equals 4 Mil per WAR, which is off the charts considering 1 Win is valued at the very least 7 Mil.



To top all of this off for a guy who came for free, who completely outpitched his contract, his departure netted LA the 32nd overall pick in the Draft, who the Dodgers used to draft Catcher Will Smith out of Louisville he now is LA's 11th best prospect, a great defender who clobbered the ball in the Arizona Fall League.


As always feel free to comment, make suggestions and subscribe. Let's spread the word. Hit me up on Twitter i'm @E_Max27


See Y'all later.

So i had an epiphany, maybe, I don't know. The point is...

Note: It's way past midnight my time zone and I just had a moment of clarity or maybe I manufactured one, either way, I felt like writing this. Just a heads up, given the time, my sleep deprivation and the use of my cell phone with no auto correct, you'll see a significant amount of spelling mistakes. I'll be sure to fix them tomorrow. For now, just focus on the message


I have decided to expand my content beyond what goes on in the diamond, from now I'll be addressing other topics, anything that peaks my interest really.


A very big "principal" I have in my life is to constantly ask myself why I'm doing this, and if it's something I don't want to be doing, What do I want to instead and why am I not doing that. As it is with pretty much any and all philosophies, a way of living, principals whatever you may call it's easy to dismiss it as being just another cliche.


The thing is it doesn't matter, I'm not here trying to convince you of my beliefs and why you should listen to me, this is not some revolutionary thought, and even if it is, it shouldn't be, there are so many hardships in life so much struggle regardless of who you are that you really should seek what you want to seek.




A quote from a movie I once saw, is very interesting: "It's not stupid if you like it."


That referring to another character's love for comic books.


How many times have you seen someone apologizing for their taste, that goes for music, books, tv shows, movies, food whatever. Liking something that is mocked by society doesn't make you a freak, it makes you you. Truth be told almost everyone does is just that most tend to hide it.


It goes without saying that there is wrong and certain extremities fit that mold, so don't go there and yes you know what I'm talking about.


Something else I'd like to address that it is on this subject, you probably heard by now the whole what you want and what you need are two completely different things. But here's my perspective on the matter.


Physically what we need is food, clean water and oxygen, one of which is free, the other two can fluctuate depending on the location, for someone living in the jungle is free, for an executive staying at the penthouse of the Four Seasons expensive (just not to him, if you put it into perspective). The point is while a lot of people die for not having one of these. For the majority of humans, it's fairly available and you both want and need. Anything else that it is tangible, you want not need.


Now the big part is this, emotionally there is a huge link between what you want and need. Although a lot of people lose sight of this at somepoint, we all want love, irrational crazy yet wonderful love, a soul mate, friendship, soemeone by our side all of that stuff everyone has heard a million times, bound to hear a million more, it's all true, it fulfills you, it makes you a better person, the catch is it leaves you vulnerable, open, exposed, the risk of pain, broken heart is much greater, which drives people away, so many out there are afraid to love for this reason.


It all boils down to taking a chance, the path to happiness goes through love and there is no way around it and to love, to really love like we were meant to, you must take.a chance, give up power and care.


People that give that up, may hold the power emotionally, they may control their relationships, successfully avoid the pain and even appear happy on the surface, but don't mistake happiness with joy. A lot of things bring us joy, the same cannot be said about happiness.


And I end this collection of words keep in mind. Live YOUR life, doing what you want, don't apologize for your taste and there's a great link between what you want and what you need emotionally, and lastly seek Love, forever seek Love.

Sports Trivia (Answers)

The Answers are:

1,


Aaron Altherr

2,

SD Chargers with Dan Fouts and Phillip Rivers.



3,


Zack Greinke 10.4(09) and 9.3(15).



4,


Donovan McNabb 9-7, and Jim Kelly 9-8.



5,


Kershaw 1.81(14), 1.99(15), and Koufax 1.85(63), 1.93(65).



6,


Baltimore Ravens at .652% (15-8).



7,

Beckett: Cubs, Yankees, and Angels, and Bumgarner: Pirates, Royals, and Mets.

Sports Trivia

Hi everyone, for those of you who missed my articles (He says with the illusion that anybody actually cares) I apologize, I just don't feel like writing and haven't for the past few days, I'm sure is just a temporary thing, after all, it wasn't until a few months ago that I began writing and as I did, I started at a pace it was obvious I wouldn't keep, writing on a daily basis or close to it is not a problem, but it can wear you out, especially when you have other obligations but as I said this is a temporary thing so expect them to be back soon.


For now, I'll leave you with another trivia, this time I'll mix it up a bit, bringing in some football questions and as for the NL half of bold predictions, that will probably be up Friday night. Some award and playoff predictions coming before the regular season as well.


First post with the questions, second post with the answers.


Feel free to post your answers and how you fared in the comment section.




1, Clayton Kershaw had allowed 0 Grand Slams in his career prior to the 2017 season. He gave one up in the previous season. Who hit it?




2, Can you name the one team to which more than one QB in the top 15 of Passing Yards in the history of the NFL played his whole career for?




3, According to Baseball Reference's version of WAR, the 2 highest single-season marks by an active pitcher, belong to the same player. Who is he?




4, Two different Quarterbacks are tied for the most playoff wins without ever winning a Super Bowl. Who are they?




5, In the last 100 years. There a total of 11 single seasons with starting pitchers finishing the year with a FIP under 2.00. Only 2 different starters managed to pull that off twice. Who are they?




6, Which team has the highest winning percentage in the NFL Postseason ever?




7, Only 2 pitchers in the history of baseball have managed to shutout 3 different teams in the postseason. Who are they?




I hope you enjoyed it.