Marco Gonzales and his boringly elite fastball
These days you can’t even go to a rotary club without coming out the other side thinking that Marco Gonzales is boring. Once you see he has a fastball in the upper 80’s your suspicions of boringness will be confirmed. To put into perspective just how boring Marco Gonzales is look no further than the Mariners team store.
Oh sorry, were you trying to find some merch-- ANY merch, for the Mariners’ best pitcher?
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Super Baseball 2020: A 29 year-old video game that somehow knew baseball would be extremely weird in 2020
Super Baseball 2020 is a video game that I first played in 2020. That makes sense, until you realize that the game came out in 1991. The game is a sci-fi near-future take on the sport of baseball. Well, the near-future is here so what better time to dive into this old game.
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2020 Radar Chart Baseball Cards
If you’re familiar with my cards from last season the actual radar charts should look basically the same to you. It’s still a three year sample size, with the same stat categories and the chart still represents a player’s percentile rank in each of the categories, while the lines are at 10% intervals. The one change on the Radar Chart that you will notice is the big number in the middle. That number is the player’s WAR(wins above replacement) Per 600 Plate Appearances.
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The Croix De Oracle and other ways the Giants can market an underwhelming product
The marketing department will have their work cut out for them in 2020. Bumgarner is gone. Bochy is gone. Posey, Belt and Crawford are showing their age and the rest of the on-field talent is mostly unknown and mostly underwhelming. But it’s not all bad news because an underwhelming team can allow the marketing department to get a bit weird. It’s even given me some ideas of my own.
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The Plethora of Baseball Video Games in 1994 (Or help Timmy spend his hard-earned allowance money)
A record 10 baseball video games came out in 1994. How is Timmy supposed to know which one to spend his hard-earned allowance money on? We need to break down these games and the marketing they used to help Timmy make an informed decision.
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Radar Chart Baseball Cards
Inspired by the radar charts I would spend way too long studying in my childhood video games, I wanted to create something similar for baseball players.
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The Winter Meetings from my couch: hunting nuggets and handing out stupid awards
COUCH — What an honor it was to be invited to the 2018 MLB Winter Meetings! This years event was located at the illustrious #WINTERMEETINGS and for four straight days I was able to virtually grease palms and rub knuckles with industry icons in search of all the offseason nuggets we crave
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Introducing the Portland Squatch
I love Sasquatch. The mystery, the fear, the stupid Animal Planet show. Give me all of it. He(she?) is the best fake animal that American culture has to offer and that demands sports recognition.
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Who's that weirdo in Right Field? (Or a celebration of Hunter Pence)
I don’t have many friends that love baseball. They love other sports, which means they get the occasional baseball nugget as a result of browsing sports sites or watching ESPN.
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Introducing the Portland Stumps
As a Portland resident I've long been intrigued at the idea of Portland having a baseball team. This town is crazy about sports and I'm crazy about baseball so the intrigue is a natural fit. With the hype building for Portland to get a team I had to get in on the fun with a team design concept: The Portland Stumps.
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Mantle VS Mays and the Home Run Derby that Started it all
A closer look at the first episode of the short-lived TV show “Home Run Derby” hosted by Mark Scott. Featuring Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays facing off in a home run hitting contest.
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The Top 20 Nicknames in Baseball: Analysis of Player Nicknames, Part II
The goal today is to rank the best nicknames in baseball. I have a list of 934 active players, 565 of them have a nickname on baseball reference and 105 of them have multiple nicknames. That’s a lot to whittle down. You may think ranking such a thing is arbitrary and biased, however, I would like to point out that it’s also silly and pointless.
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The Mouse and The Snake: Analysis of Player Nicknames, Part I
I looked up every Big Leauger’s nickname on baseball reference. This may sound fun to you. Hell, the only reason I started this project was because it sounded fun to me. Believe me, it wasn’t fun. If baseball players were more funny maybe this would’ve been more fun. But in the words of Sam Miller, “baseball players aren’t funny.”
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Greg Maddux and the Pursuit of the Long Ball
Chicks Dig the Long Ball is a commercial that inspired thousands of pitchers to begin taking extra rounds of batting practice in hopes of getting "cat-called" like Mark McGwire. After watching this commercial for the 100th time I'm left wondering whether this lengthy training montage actually improved Greg Maddux as a hitter.
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