Newsletter Excerpt, May 10, 2024 -- "Field of Skenes"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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Across 24 hours these next two days, then, the Pirates will be putting their future on the field. Jones has been one of the breakout stars of the early season, with a 2.63 ERA and a ridiculous 52/5 K/BB in his first seven career starts. He goes tonight against the Cubs, then Skenes follows him. For at least the next two months or so, until the Pirates put the brakes on the two pitchers, the Pirates are going to do what very few teams do these days -- start ace-caliber pitchers in back-to-back games. Skenes and Jones could be the 1-2 punch every team desperately wants to develop.
 

Newsletter Excerpt, May 9, 2024 -- "Notes"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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Remember, we no longer get pitchers’ duels, where the tension mounts as two hurlers quickly dispatch the opposition. Even good starters on good days rarely pitch the ninth, most don’t see the eighth, and often a pitcher is pulled having posted six shutout innings. There have been 59 starts already this season in which a pitcher went exactly six innings and allowed no runs. There were 141 of those, total, in the 1970s. Last year, there were 199 starts that fit the criteria. There were 255 during the entire 1980s.

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, May 8, 2024 -- "The Shortstops"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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Let’s focus on the three incredible talents at the top of the game’s shortstop pool, the Jeter/Rodriguez/Garciaparra of their era: Gunnar Henderson, Elly De La Cruz, and Bobby Witt Jr. By bWAR, they’re three of the top 20 players in baseball so far this season, Henderson and Witt among the top six. They get to those lofty rankings in different ways, and of course, age has to be part of the equation if we’re answering the original question: Which of the three would go first if you were starting a team today?

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, May 6, 2024 -- "Twins, Past and Present"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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All this is to say that Bendix is right on the merits. He has to start over if he’s going to do what he was hired to do, build Rays South. Trading Arraez now, when the second baseman has two seasons to free agency, is the first step on that path. The Marlins, owing to all those pitching injuries, don’t have much to deal. There are no good hitters on this team. There are few healthy pitchers, fewer still effective ones. Arraez is the best hitter for average in baseball, but that’s the extent of his skill set, and it’s fair to wonder whether he has peaked.

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, May 3, 2024 -- "Royal Confusion"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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If you want to look outside, see that it’s a sunny Friday afternoon in May and go outside without finishing this, I don’t blame you. The Royals’ offensive statistics are throwing up so many mixed messages it’s hard to say whether they’re lucky or unlucky. Forget output and timing, though, and just consider this: The Royals are making a lot of contact, a lot of hard contact, and a lot of the best contact (barrels). All of that is sustainable. As likely as not, when their performance with runners on base regresses, their overall performance should improve. This may not be a top-five offense; it is at least an average one.

Newsletter Excerpt, May 1, 2024 -- "Brew Crew Doing the Do"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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It’s another typical Brewers team, showing off the whole range of talent acquisition. William Contreras is an MVP candidate picked up in trade, with Willy Adames, Joey Ortiz, and Oliver Dunn also products of swaps. Brice Turang, Sal Frelick, and Jackson Chourio -- the latter two not contributing much so far -- are farm products. Blake Perkins was a free-talent add who had been let go by his third organization when the Brewers signed him in 2022, and while Gary Sanchez is more famous, he’s playing for just $3 million himself, practically free.