Best Batter Today

Christian Yelich kept his batting average above .400 with a two for five night against the Reds, and maintains a 30 point lead in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. Anthony Rendon homered and singled to stay in second place and keep his BA at .400 as well. Mike Trout moves up to third, Alex Bregman breaks back into the top five with a single, double, and walk. J.D. Martinez rounds out the top five.

Bryce Harper struck out his first two times up back in Washington, then put on a show with a single, double, and monster home run as the Phillies beat the Nationals 8-2. He moves up to eighth in the rankings.

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Wednesday Update

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

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Cramer Remembers

Baseball statistics pioneer Dick Cramer writes about his life in analytics, both drug design and sports analysis. When Big Data was Small will be available in May.

Dick and I were introduced by a common friend, and that bit of networking eventually led to me working at STATS, Inc. I’m looking forward to reading about his fascinating life.

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Grichuk Bucks

The Blue Jays extend outfielder Randal Grichuk:

Outfielder Randal Grichuk is in agreement with the Toronto Blue Jays on a five-year, $52 million extension, a league source familiar with the deal told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Grichuk, 27, was set to be a free agent after the 2020 season.

ESPN.com

It’s an interesting signing. Grichuk is a one dimensional player, where most of his value lies in his slugging percentage. Many low batting average sluggers walk a lot, but not Grichuk. His career OBP is below .300. He doesn’t seem like a player that you want around for five years, as someone better might come along.

The Blue Jays do get him cheap, however, as he is a two-WAR player. Maybe since players like Grichuk aren’t doing well in free agency, he probably thought here’s a chance to be set for life, and and the Jays were happy to get his two-WAR talent at a big discount.

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Acuna Cashes In

The Braves and Ronald Acuna, Jr. agree to an eight-year, $100 million contract:

When Ronald Acuña Jr. is earning $17 million per year in his prime, the Atlanta Braves may have one of baseball’s best bargains.

From the perspective of Acuña, that possibility isn’t a concern. At 21, he is the youngest player to land a $100 million deal and he said he has no regrets about gaining that security so early in his career.

Acuña and the Braves agreed to a $100 million, eight-year contract on Tuesday, the largest deal for a player under club control with less than one year of major league service.

The NL Rookie of the Year , Acuña agreed to a deal with two team options that, if exercised, would raise the value to $124 million over 10 years.

StarTribune.com

Albert Pujols signed for seven years, $100 million after three great seasons with the Cardinals. The contract had an option for 2011 that was exercised, so the full contract was worth $116 million for eight years. According to FanGraphs, Pujols produced $350 million in value, making that a fantastic signing for the Cardinals. Acuna is not Pujols yet, but if he waited a year or two, he might have greatly eclipsed that contract by a wide margin. If he does turn out to be as good as Pujols, this will be the steal of the century.

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Shocking

The most shocking thing about the 2019 season so far is the team at the bottom of average game scores, the Boston Red Sox. Boston has a good rotation. Maybe in a four game series two of their starters get lit up. They are not going deep in games. They are giving up lots of hits, and a lot of those hits are home runs. This comes against Seattle, a team that lost three good hitters over the winter, and in Oakland, where home runs don’t come easy.

It’s early, and it’s likely mostly bad luck and some bad defense. The Red Sox pitchers are attacking the strike zone with the first pitch, and maybe these two teams decided to be aggressive with that pitch.

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Games of the Day

Bryce Harper returns to Washington as a member of the Phillies. Barry Svrluga gets Harper’s take on how the winter played out. Harper wanted to return to the Nationals, but they actually lowered the offer they made at the end of the season.

Harper will face Max Scherzer in support of Zach Eflin. Eflin was knocked around by the Nationals last season, allowing 24 in 13 2/3 innings despite striking out 12. Schezer is third on the Nationals all-time strikeout list, and will probably pass Gio Gonzalez 1/3 of the way through the season.

I didn’t think coming into the season that a Minnesota at Kansas City game would make this post often, but Jose Berrios versus Brad Keller is a worthy match-up. Both pitched short shutouts in their first starts. Berrios went 7 2/3 innings, allowing two hits and one walk while striking out 10. Keller lasted seven innings, also allowing two hits and a walk, but striking out just five batters.

Enjoy!

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