Newsletter Excerpt, May 9, 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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

Newsletter Excerpt, April 30, 2024 -- "Guardians of the Strike Zone"

 

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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The Guardians may be benefiting more than most teams from the changed offensive environment. They don’t hit for power, so they have less to lose if the ball isn’t flying quite as well. They’re still terrible at impressing Statcast -- also known as “hitting the ball hard” -- with bottom-five marks in barrels and barrel rate. Only the White Sox have a lower rate of hard-hit balls than the Guardians do.

Newsletter Excerpt, April 29, 2024 -- "Not Quite Disastros"

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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Even after sweeping the Rockies over the weekend in Mexico City, the Astros are well below expectation, further off their projection than any team actually trying to succeed. The thing is, they’re not nearly as bad as 9-19. They’ve been outscored by just 22 runs, giving them a 12-16 Pythagorean projection. Clay Davenport has them with an above-.500 third-order record at 14.5-13.5. Six games out of first in your morning paper (kids, ask your grandparents), they’re pretty much in a three-way tie with the Rangers and Mariners when you dig into underlying performance.