“If you pitch to him he’ll ruin baseball. He’d hit 80 home runs. There’s no comparison between McCovey and anybody else in the league.” - Sparky Anderson
Willie McCovey is still 5th all-time in intentional walks with 260, his season record of 55 stood for decades.
Julio Rodríguez is younger than three members of the 2026 MLB Top Prospect list.
(Brandon Sproat, Hunter Barco, Parker Messick)
"Philadelphia is the only city where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day." - Michael Jack Schmidt
The best outfield OAA seasons in Statcast history:
(Data from Baseball Savant. This is 2016-2025)
There are three seasons since 1900 when a player 35 years or older hit .300+ with 50+ stolen bases:
Lou Brock, 1974
Lou Brock, 1975
Lou Brock, 1976
Art by @graigkreindler.bsky.social
Harrison Bader- April 27, 2025
5% catch probability per Baseball Savant
(3% success rate)
Harrison Bader is unlikely to repeat his batting line from last season, but this is a needed defensive upgrade in CF for the Giants.
In 2025, Giants CF were dead last in baseball in DRS, 28/30 in FRV, and 29/30 in DRP (Baseball Prospectus).
Bader in OF spots in 2025:
DRS- +13
FRV- +5
DRP- +1.4
MLB released Gold Glove predictions today! I agree with almost all of them, only vary on NL LF and maybe AL 1B.
And I'm pretty sure Andrés Giménez isn't eligible at AL 2B (not enough innings through 138 team games), but they have him winning.
www.mlb.com/astros/news/...
Aaron Boone continues his meteoric rise up the career manager ejection leaderboard!
With #43 yesterday, he is now tied with Joe Girardi. Legendary names ahead!
Pete Crow-Armstrong is up to 13 five-star catches this season, with no other outfielder having more than six!
After the recent recalibration of difficult plays, the season record for five-star grabs is 17 by Byron Buxton in 2017.
Rich Hill is more than nine years older than Madison Bumgarner.
Umpires With The Highest Batter OPS
1) Clint Vondrak (.798)
2) Brock Ballou (.788)
3) Chad Whitson (.783)
4) Chris Conroy (.783)
5) Jim Wolf (.770)
6) Mike Muchlinski (.765)
7) Laz Diaz (.763)
8) Tripp Gibson (.760)
9) Andy Fletcher (.760)
10) Doug Eddings (.759)
From today's @baseball_ref faces:
Ron Hunt led the league in times hit by pitch SEVEN seasons in a row, from 1968-1974! He was plunked an incredible 50 times in 1971.
Hunt is 6th all-time in HBP, despite playing fewer than 1,500 games.
Aaron Judge already has the 6th best hitting season of the last five years, it's only July 10th.
(by FanGraphs batting value)
Pete Crow-Armstrong has made 16.4% of the five-star catches (<= 25%) in the league this season.
There have been 61, PCA has ten of them.
Five-Star Catches:
PCA- 10
V Scott, Jr.- 3
H Bader- 3
W Abreu- 3
The only TEAM that is even close is the Red Sox (8)
From Baseball Savant/Statcast
“Oscar Charleston could have played on any big-league team in history if he had been given the opportunity. He could hit, run and throw. I’ve seen all the great players in the many years I’ve been around and have yet to see one any greater than Charleston.” - Honus Wagner
It is July 1, 2025, just past the midway point of the season.
MLB pitchers have already thrown more 96+ MPH pitches than the entire seasons of 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.
And fastball usage is down from that time. Just 55% in 2025, all those years fastballs were more than 62% of pitches.
Denzel Clarke has played nine (9!) games, and is tied for 13th in fielding run value (FRV) with 4. He has 3 defensive runs saved. There's certainly some margin for error here with just nine games, but those numbers are special.
Clarke also had this 5% ball knocked out of his glove by the wall:
A jump of 11.8 feet above average on this ball is just wild:
Thanks to Stathead span finder for the search
@baseball-reference.com
@baseballharmony.com
@codifybaseball.bsky.social
@bsmile.bsky.social
Only one player in baseball history has a 162-game span with 45+ homers and 75+ stolen bases.
Eric Davis has SEVENTY of them (overlapping).
His highs are 50/94 and 45/100!
In 1935, he hit .372 with a 7-3 pitching record to lead the NY Cubans to the Negro National League 2nd half title.
The Cubans lost a 7-game series to the Pittsburgh Crawfords (featuring Gibson, Bell, Charleston, Johnson), which some consider the greatest team ever.
-Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
“He was the only guy I ever saw who could play all nine positions, manage, run and switch-hit.” - Hall of Famer Johnny Mize said of Dihigo.
Johnny Mize said Dihigo was better than any other ballplayer he had ever seen. Mize played with and against DiMaggio, Musial, Mantle, etc.
Martín Dihigo is one of the greatest baseball players of all-time. "El Inmortal" was born on this day in 1906.
He isn't just a Hall of Famer, he's in FIVE of them! Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, DR, and USA. He was inducted in Cooperstown in 1977, the first Cuban player to receive the honor.
It is May 21st in the 2025 season.
Major league starting pitchers have already thrown more 97+ MPH pitches than all of the full seasons from 2008 to 2012:
A representative Yandy Diaz swing:
Always one of the lowest attack angles, and always near the top of smashed ground-out leaderboards!
Graphic from new Baseball Savant swing path and attack angle data.
Pete Rose might have to get 14 or 15 committee votes to get in.
Don’t believe me? Google “Pete Rose 14 or 15” and see for yourself.
Pete Crow-Armstrong's FRV (fielding run value) ranks 25th among major league outfielders since the start of the 2018 season.
Pete Crow-Armstrong was a sophomore in high school in 2018.
This ball yesterday had a 70% catch probability, and he made it look completely routine. +4 feet of jump above average. True routine plays are above 90%.
