Keith Law’s scouting notebook

• The Mets’ High-A affiliate in Brooklyn came through Wilmington a few weeks ago, with a killer heart of their lineup in Francisco Álvarez, Ronny Mauricio and Brett Baty. Mauricio showed incredible bat speed from both sides of the plate, with loose, quick hands, but a tendency to rush himself and commit on pitches before [...]

Former MLB catcher Paul Lo Duca ordered to pay $500,000 for defaming umpire Joe West

A Paul Lo Duca-Joe West lawsuit is like a Braves-Phillies game in that it's good news because you know one side will lose. You just wish they could figure out a way for them to both take the "L." On the podcast, according to West’s complaint, Lo Duca was recalling a mid-2000s game in which [...]

Luis Guillorme’s 22-pitch PA

You've probably heard about Luis Guillorme's epic PA yesterday. Here's video from MLB.com https://twitter.com/i/status/1371181080846475264 Today, Baseball-Reference's Stathead newsletter talked about Guillorme's trip to the plate and compared it to lengthy regular season PA. Since 1988, the beginning of "consistent pitch data" for B-R, there have only been two instances where a PA has lasted for [...]

SABR 50 at 50: Analytics

It's the 50th anniversary of the founding of SABR - Society for American Baseball Research. To celebrate, SABR offers 50 moments in the evolution of baseball analytics for the past 50 years. This is a great piece for people to learn important moments in the game's history from a non-player point of view. What makes [...]

Fan vote for coveted #1 slot in Topps baseball card set revealed

Topps has announced that Fernando Tatis Jr. will be the first card in their 2021 set. Since 2016, Topps has collected a community vote to decide the top spot. Trout is the only player to have won that vote twice, in '16 and '20. It's fathomable that Tatis could join Trout one day. He's only [...]

What pitching every fourth day would mean for Trevor Bauer and the team that signs him

With the Mets' top free agent target now looking like Trevor Bauer, it's encouraging to me to find out that one of the things he wants is to pitch in a four-man rotation. Now, that's not going to happen with the Mets. But for the reigning Cy Young Award winner to actively campaign for the [...]

How the Philadelphia Phillies botched their rebuild — and what it tells us about tanking

A good look at the Phillies of the last decade. Unlike a lot of articles, there's not one great "pull quote" to highlight. It's well worth reading in its entirety. The Phillies, still without a winning season since 2011, have reached the point where the proverbial final pieces -- the expensive veteran stars -- have [...]