Whenever Statcast unveils a new tool that attempts to quantify a skill or quality that had previously been generalized on broadcasts, there's usually one player I start with because of long-held beliefs or suspicions that I finally have an opportunity to (in)validate.
This time, the area of focus is first baseman defense, as Statcast unveiled a receiving leaderboard capturing scoops, but also the array of other throws that might challenge a guy's reach, reaction time or flexibility.
And this time, the first player I wanted to look up was Andrew Vaughn. To borrow a football term, his catch radius was much smaller at first base than that of that of José Abreu, and I'd wondered how much the times failing to hold the bag hurt the White Sox's infield defense.
According to Statcast, he was a net positive, finishing at 2 Runs Above Average from 2021 through 2024. The observation wasn't completely unfounded, because Vaughn posted one of the lowest scores when it came to handling wide throws, but his receiving compensated with above-average handling of bounced throws and high throws. So whatever part of my brain spent background resources harboring those doubts should be able to rest easier.
Regarding this year's White Sox, Munetaka Murakami is 29th out of 37 first basement in receiving, with the second-worst performance on scoops. That passes the eye test, and also makes sense given that he's pretty new to the position. Statcast puts him at 0 OOA when considering the rest of his defensive game, which also feels right. Sometimes he looks like a third baseman playing first, and other times ... well, he looks like a third baseman playing first.
Spare Parts
U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, whose district covers Chicago's northwest suburbs and exurbs, had an audience with Pope Leo XIV, and reported that His Holiness watched the White Sox blow a 4-1 lead to the Reds on Pope Hat Night.
- After second-half slump, Tristan Peters credits more patient approach for return to form -- Chicago Sun-Times
- From pregame bling to HR off the glove, Tristan Peters has a memorable night -- whitesox.com
Jerry Reinsdorf still likes to give rings to players who accomplished the cycle, and Tristan Peters is the latest recipient.
We covered this earlier in the week in the podcast, but Jake Rogers' walk-off homer Friday provided another example of the pros and cons of Schriffen's approach.
He does a better job of reflecting the raw emotions of huge moments, but as somebody who tires of hearing "Let's go" being the default response of dudes everywhere, the range of words doesn't match the range of volume..
Speaking of risking sounding old and out of touch...
... after some time and consideration, I'm not a fan of Jefry Yan's celebratory leap on strikeouts -- or what he perceives to be strikeouts -- simply because it doesn't scale. Other forms of celebration, be they bat flips or dugout props, can be done bigger or in greater volume without disrupting the general presentation of the game. If every player maxed out his vertical celebrating his job's equivalent of retiring the first batter of an inning, it'd look like the game was glitching out.
I did like the way Colson Montgomery's neutral-at-best response was phrased as "praise."
Upon calling up the 29-year-old rookie earlier this month, Green -- the Mets’ former farm director -- noted that opponents in the Minors knew all about Yan’s antics and tended not to take umbrage at them. To the contrary, Green and others praised the joy with which Yan plays the game.
“I mean, it’s one of those things where if he strikes you out, you probably don’t like it,” Montgomery said. “If I would have struck out there, I would have been pretty mad. If you get on or get a hit, you don’t think about it.”
If it seems like Derek Hill has been disproportionately involved in a ton of big moments, both for the White Sox and after they traded him to the Phillies, you'd be right. He's hitting .261/.301/.466 with the Phillies, and while the strikeout rate makes it completely unsustainable, you never look production from a fifth outfielder in the mouth.
I've often wondered why people could walk around malls that have long outlived their usefulness when equivalent public buildings can be padlocked, and this article goes into the different factors that make it mandatory to remain open. That said, the last dead mall I went to was in New Hampshire, and giving seniors a place to walk in a New England February seemed like a positive unintended outcome.
