In a fan participation contest at The Athletic, you can choose the best of the three Royals teams comprising 1990s players. Selections were made by Rustin Dodd, Austin Meek, and Jayson Jenks.
No. 3: Kevin Appier (Dodd)
Dodd: Ape World is arguably the most underrated player in franchise history — and he’s in the Royals Hall of Fame and was an All-Star. He ranks second in franchise history in WAR behind George Brett. Second. In 1993, he finished 18-8 with a American League-leading 2.56 ERA in 238 innings. He was 15-8 with a 2.46 ERA the year before. In fact, he was one of the most underrated starters in the AL for most of the early 1990s.
Sam Mellinger and Vahe Gregorian remember the 2015 ALDS Game 4 win over the Astros:
...that might still be the loudest baseball game I’ve ever been to. It was more noisemaker than actual cheering, but still: It was rock-concert loud right up until that eighth inning. And that, to me, is what I remember most: the transition from rock concert to wake was so damn fast, it was jarring. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced something quite like it.
Speaking of that game, Jesse Newell breaks down the narrative about whether Kendrys Morales’ important grounder up the middle was just dumb luck, or something else.
Statcast allows us to examine this situation even deeper. I searched for all instances since 2015 of grounders very similar to Morales’: Between 106-108 mph, between negative-5 and negative-7 launch angle and between negative-1 and 1 degree of spray angle (aka, right back toward the pitcher).
The results: Among 22 batters who had these events with any baserunner situation, 10 reached on singles, 11 made field outs and one reached base on error (Morales). In other words, exactly half of those players reached base safely.
Scott Boras, who is a baseball agent and not an epidemiologist, wants to resume Spring Training despite none of us knowing when or if MLB can resume.
Even before we know when, where and how we will have an Opening Day, we should give players the chance to ramp up for Major League competition. Like many others, they are doing their best to make things work without access to the ballparks that are their ’offices.’ But the best basement batting cage or backyard mound can’t give world-class hitters and pitchers the game-speed preparation they need.
In Taiwan, where national pandemic response was aggressive and has been successful, the Chinese Professional Baseball League is ready to play baseball with some fans - limited in number, screened, masked, and not sitting close together - in the stands.
13 prospects with Top 100 potential, from Baseball America ($).
The LA Times gave space to noted gross TV producer Mike Fleiss suggesting that MLB use player wives as weird sex props to...make players want to win? It’s not clear what he was trying to accomplish with his word vomit, but Sheryl Ring at Beyond the Box Score tore the nasty idea all the way down.
These three upcoming 30 for 30s look really good.
The latest on Tommy John rehab progress of Tigers RHP Michael Fulmer.
If you watched the latest episodes of The Last Dance, you saw the glorious hair and humor of Michael Jordan’s security guy, the late Michael Wozniak. Matt Fortuna at The Athletic spoke to Wozniak’s son, Nicholi.
If you’re feeling like we JUST had a #GivingTuesday, and yet your inbox was filled again with solicitations for donations, you’re not imagining things. Yesterday was an additional Giving Tuesday, necessitated by the pandemic.
Twitter will try to clean up everyone’s act by prompting them to reconsider sending tweets that contain swears and slurs.
The love/lust interest of a 1991 bestselling romance novel was based on Dr. Anthony Fauci.
It’s possible that billionaire Elon Musk named his baby X Æ A-12 Musk.
I realize that years pass and people’s ages increase, in theory, yet learning how old Kurt Loder is blew my mind:
Former MTV VJ Kurt Loder turns 75-years-old today. How old do you feel right now? pic.twitter.com/yhcuIAvGB8
— Cass Anderson (@casspa) May 5, 2020
Today’s music, inspired by a turn of events that saw a John Deere riding mower basically falling into my lap, for free. We’ve been mowing the farmstead with a push mower for four years, hoping something like this would happen.