Happy Friday. Let's do a defense thread again.

A guy with shockingly good metrics: Daulton Varsho (+13 OAA as an outfielder).

A guy with shockingly poor metrics: Taylor Walls (-7 OAA. I do know DRS likes him better.)

Varsho first. He doesn't have elite speed. But he gets *fantastic* reads/jumps. Best in MLB: baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/ou…

Eye test: "not easy, but not insanely hard." Numbers say otherwise -- 5% Catch Prob -- because he had such a good jump, +10 feet better than avg, that he got there w/o a dive.

So: ONeil Cruz has been back up for about 25 minutes. He's already got the hardest tracked throw by an infielder of the season (96.7). I think that's going to work. if the 1B had any sense of humor he'd come out for the next inning with a catcher's mitt

I don’t know how long I’m going to keep up the bit of Posting Old Baseball Stories Just Because It Makes Old Grumps Mad, but I like this one, and I hope you will too.

This is Zeke Bonura.

You know the name if you watch CHW games. But you won’t guess where this is going. I wrote a brief bit about Zeke last year because we share a birthday. His real name was Henry, but apparently his high school teammates called him “Physique,” which was shortened to “Zeke,” which, sure, whatever, weird.
(sabr.org/bioproj/person…).
mlb.com/news/baseball-…

A trivia question you'll never, ever get. This is hard-hit/swing. Who, among those with 90 batted balls, has the fifth-best rate of hard-hit per swing in MLB? If you get this: You're cheating, or you're him.

1) Yordan
2) Brantley
3) Betts
4) Judge
5) ?????
6) Abreu
7) Vlad 65 replies and only one person has even gotten the right *team* yet

I was doing some research on catcher stuff today and I came across a player I'd somehow never heard of, and his stories are great, which I'm now sharing with you. It's Friday. It's story time. Buckle up. Jimmie Wilson was a pretty solid catcher for the Phils & Cardinals in the 1920s and 30s. He started for the NL in the first-ever All Star Game.

In 1928, he was traded from PHI to STL *in the middle of a game.* He started for Philly, got pulled, & put on a Cardinals uniform.

...

Every time I look up at a Mets game, something like *this* is happening. And then they inevitably take advantage. Because they're good. This was hit hard, to be fair. But also, come on. Catch something.

Actually, it'll be the Coors Field BABIP derby *hit by a bus* when someone from this year's Derby does worse in the 2022 Derby, it'll because derbying at Coors affects you on the *explodes*

So this Twins/Brewers strikeout fest is going to turn into All The Hot Takes about how there's way too many K's in MLB -- there are! really are! -- but we've realllly got to make sure that doesn't overtake the fact that Burnes & Berríos are absolute dudes pitching insanely great. Like, for this particular game I'm going to push the big picture implications to the side for a minute, and kick back and enjoy two unbelievable pitchers doing it about as well as it can be done. It's art.

So hey, here's a fun (if somewhat complicated) new thing.

Now on Baseball Savant: Now you can see the measured spin direction (thanks, Hawk-Eye!) of each pitcher's pitches, and compare them to the observed. So here's the man, Shane Bieber.

MORE-> mlb.com/news/new-statc… My favorite thing is comparing a normal change-up like Giolito's that is supposed to work off his fastball with how hilarious THE AIRBENDER is

When's the last time a 36 year old got four years? Has it ever happened? Can't be many.

latimes.com/sports/dodgers…

https://twitter.com/jasoncollette/status/1346193088256094209?s=19