Newsletter Excerpt, April 29, 2022 -- "20 R/G"

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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

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"The free-runner rule is worth a tenth of a run per game to the overall stats. A full 2% of the runs in MLB this season have been scored in extra innings, despite those extras accounting for about half of one percent of all innings played."

Newsletter Excerpt, April 27, 2022 -- "Thinking Inside the Box"

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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"With all that, the Jays are third in the AL in runs scored and fifth in wRC+ because they can score with a single swing of the bat. For all the backlash over home runs, for all the complaints about how hitters swing the bat now, no one’s been able to articulate an argument for team scoring that’s better than “hit the ball hard and far.” Power -- and yes, strikeouts -- is the fastest way to score runs, to hang crooked numbers, and to win games. When that changes, whether by putting oil-soaked balls into play or mandating that batters hit with tennis rackets or whatever else MLB chooses other than “throttling back the pitchers,” we can talk. Until then, #ballgofarteamgofar."

Newsletter Excerpt, April 25, 2022 -- "Black and Blue Sox"

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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"The question of what happens now hovers over this group. The next starter up is Johnny Cueto, a 36-year-old whose decent 2021 season -- a 4.08 ERA and 4.05 FIP in 115 innings -- was his first good work since 2016. Jimmy Lambert took Giolito’s place for two starts and didn’t get out of the fourth inning either time. For his career, the 27-year-old righty doesn’t have an ERA below 4.00 at any level above A ball."

Newsletter Excerpt, April 24, 2022 -- "Fun With Numbers: 3000"

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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"Whether any of these guys, or Ramirez and Bogaerts behind them, or Juan Soto and Wander Franco behind them, reach 3,000 hits depends on factors outside of the players’ control. Remember, the problem is getting worse. The league batting average during Soto’s career is .247. During Franco’s career, it’s .243. Good luck, fellas."

Newsletter Excerpt, April 22, 2022 -- "Another Intentional Walk Story"

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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $59.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"Yesterday in Detroit, the Yankees were trying to win, and that meant going after Miguel Cabrera with strikes in the first, the fourth, and the sixth, and it meant ducking him in the eighth to get a matchup between a tough lefty reliever and a lefty batter who struggles with lefties. To face Cabrera would have been to place spectacle, to place Cabrera himself, ahead of the game. No one is bigger than the game. What Aaron Boone did yesterday wasn’t offensive, wasn’t an insult, wasn’t all that big a deal. He was trying to win a baseball game, which is the only thing we can ask from everyone involved when we buy a ticket."

Newsletter Excerpt, April 19, 2022 -- "Baseball's New Baseballs"

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. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and has been a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for 25 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $59.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"Pitchers miss bats better than they ever have. When they don’t, the new baseball keeps them safe from harm. The lost home runs are just becoming flyball outs. In 2021, batters hit .225 on flyballs and slugged .914. Those numbers are .194 and .562 this year. No, I don’t think that’s just April or small sample size or a shortened spring. Statcast is reading the same things. It projects an expected slugging of .969 on flyballs this season. The actual number is .721. It projects a wOBA of .504. The actual figure is 100 points lower.

"It’s the baseballs."