R.J. Anderson
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rjandersonwrites.com
R.J. Anderson
@rjandersonwrites.com
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rjandersonwrites.com
Went with an assortment of randos who have stuck in my head for whatever reason:
Image of an Immaculate Grid featuring Vince Belnome, Guilder Rodriguez, Rich Thompson, Andy Cannizaro, Jorge Velandia, Mark Kiger, David Kelton, Mitch Talbot, and Joel Guzman
September 2, 2025 at 5:19 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
A high-ranking evaluator once told me that AJ Preller excels at trading prospects he doesn’t like. I think, in reality, he might just dislike all prospects. Good stat here from @zcrizer.bsky.social: bandwagon.substack.com/p/53-how-do-...
Players who originally signed as Padres — a list that includes Trea Turner, James Wood and Max Fried, among others — have produced almost 32 WAR in 2025, 3rd-most behind the Dodgers and Astros. But here’s where the Padres are notable: Only 16% of the 2025 production from original Padres has come for the actual Padres, the lowest percentage of any franchise. For reference, the median MLB team is still reaping 47.5% of the benefits from the current big leaguers it signed, and no other team in playoff contention is below the Cubs’ 29.7%.
August 1, 2025 at 1:14 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
I recognize this to be the point, but my goodness advertisers are becoming obnoxious with their behind-the-plate designs.
A screenshot of a baseball game where, behind home plate, there is a multicolor ad that is distracting.
July 23, 2025 at 12:06 AM
rjandersonwrites.com
The results weren't good, but it's happening—at a glance, this appears to be the first time all season he threw more changeups than heaters in an appearance.
Bryan Baker's pitch breakdown, which shows that he threw more changeups than fastballs.
July 11, 2025 at 1:58 AM
rjandersonwrites.com
Baseball is a flat circle (from this 2001 article): www.espn.com/mlb/columns/...)
"So where do the Astros get all these guys? Different places. But I believe that the Astros give themselves an advantage because they're not afraid of short right-handers."
July 6, 2025 at 1:56 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
A lesson in incentives. The Orioles made their left-field dimensions less inviting after the 2021 season, and more inviting after the 2024 season. On a related note, here’s Ryan Mountcastle’s pulled air-ball rate over the last five seasons:
Mountcastle pulled more air balls in 2021, then fewer from 2022-24, before pulling a career-high this season.
May 10, 2025 at 2:45 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Baseball is a flat circle:
From an old Peter Gammons column on ESPN: "So how do you develop young pitchers? "It's not all about velocity," says Beane. Rick Helling is 49-31 over the last three years with Texas throwing an 85 mph fastball up in the strike zone. "We made a mistake on him once and we were fortunate to get him back," says Melvin. "We saw that high fastball, but we didn't judge results. Rick has great deception. Greg Zahn used to call it his "invisiball.""
April 14, 2025 at 5:57 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Not an ideal statistic 10 days into the season.
A screenshot of a television broadcast chryon that shows the Colorado Rockies lead the majors with 20 infield hits allowed.
April 6, 2025 at 10:13 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Zach Reks can credit his baseball career to "athletically" dismounting a scooter at the right time in the right place (in front of Rick Eckstein), per this old Baseball America report:
TRACK RECORD: Reks struggled as an Air Force freshman and transferred to Kentucky, where he failed to make the team as a walk-on. He spent the next two years as a student-only until Wildcats assistant coach Rick Eckstein saw him athletically dismount a scooter and asked him to try out again. Reks made the team, became a starting outfielder and was drafted by the Dodgers in the 10th round in 2017 as a senior sign.
February 28, 2025 at 8:07 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
There are valid concerns about Sasaki’s durability, and I know evaluators who've questioned how his fastball shape will play against MLB batters (particularly if his velocity doesn’t rebound). But this a no-brainer move given Sasaki’s youth and dominance versus NPB competition:
A table showing how Roki Sasaki had much better NPB statistics than many of his peers who have moved to MLB. He posted a 26.8% strikeout-minus-walk percentage; only one other pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, was over 20%. Others, like Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish, and Kodai Senga, were at 19% or worse.
January 17, 2025 at 11:21 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
In a slightly different era, this Roy Oswalt story may have been accepted as factual. It definitely would have earned him the nickname “Sparky.”
During the 1999 season, when Oswalt was with the Class A Michigan Battle Cats in the Midwest League, he began suffering pain in his upper shoulder. A month after the season was over, he was still suffering pain. Team doctors diagnosed the pain as tendinitis earlier in the year, although Oswalt was convinced that his shoulder was torn. A few days after returning home, he was checking the spark plug wires on his pickup truck. He touched one of the spark plug wires, causing the truck's engine to start. The truck's electric current flowed through Oswalt's body, and consequently the muscles in his hand tightened on the spark plug wire. Unable to let go of it, Oswalt grasped the wire for what he said felt like two days, but was probably just a minute. He claimed his foot finally slipped off the truck's bumper and which threw him off the truck. Oswalt told his wife, "My truck done shocked the fire out of me, and my arm don't hurt no more."[8][9] He finished 1999 with 143 strikeouts and a club-high 13 wins.
December 9, 2024 at 8:02 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Built this table recently showing that Roki Sasaki's strikeout and walk rates are superior to every other recent notable NPB starter to make the leap to MLB:
A table showing Roki Sasaki's strikeout and walk rates in comparison to other NPB pitchers to transfer to MLB. Sasaki leads in both stats.
December 4, 2024 at 2:40 AM
rjandersonwrites.com
Edwin Díaz has had no feel for his slider this month. Everything is backing up over the plate or being yanked into non-competitive locations.
Edwin Díaz's slider locations, regular season and postseason, showing that his playoff locations have been either over the middle of the plate or way outside of the zone.
October 14, 2024 at 11:40 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
UNITE HERE says Aramark is refusing to pay Oakland stadium workers severance and will stop paying for their healthcare on Thursday, when the A’s play their final home game at the Coliseum. Full statement from Yulisa Elenes, vice president of Local 2:
"As the A’s play their final games in Oakland, we are disappointed that Aramark is refusing to give Coliseum concessions workers even a cent of severance for their years of serving A’s fans. If that’s not bad enough, Aramark has also told UNITE HERE Local 2 that they will not pay for health care coverage that workers have already qualified for according to current eligibility rules. Aramark's position is that concessions workers should lose their jobs and their health care after the A’s play their last game this Thursday. "Coliseum workers have taken enough disrespect and disappointment over the last year, since the A’s announced their plan to leave Oakland. UNITE HERE represents hundreds of food and beverage workers at the Oakland Coliseum, many of whom have worked there for 20 or 30 years. Concession jobs at the Coliseum have been good, union jobs for decades. These workers have made thousands of game days enjoyable for countless fans, their union wages and benefits have supported
September 24, 2024 at 11:01 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Thinking again about Leo Mazzone alleging in his book that Greg Maddux once asked an umpire what pitch he should throw—and then threw it and recorded a strikeout:
Another time, he had the bases loaded in Philadelphia, two outs. Jerry Crawford was the second base umpire, and he was set up behind the mound. I saw Maddux turn around and talk to Crawford, nod his head, come back, throw a pitch, strike the guy out. He came in and I asked what he and Crawford were talking about. He said, "Well, I just went back off the mound and told Jerry, "I don't know whether to throw this guy a fastball or a change-up. What do you think?' He said he thought he'd throw a change-up. So I threw him a change-up and struck him out."
August 23, 2024 at 5:23 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
It's this tweet but earnestly.
[Billy Beane does 19 things to get his team slightly cheaper but slightly worse] "mm yes, I see it" [Nats sign Scherzer] "makes no sense."
July 28, 2024 at 11:49 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Wrote this paragraph a few days ago. Thinking about it again now.
As we wrote in the Arozarena analysis, these deals have crummy optics despite being logical baseball moves. In both instances, the Rays have violated the tacit understanding between front offices and fans, as well as front offices and their players that says winning is what matters. A team that has a decent chance at the postseason this late in the year (and FanGraphs had the Rays' odds over 17%) shouldn't be sending good players out, and especially not to their direct competition. Baseball is, at its heart, an entertainment business. The only reason any of this matters -- the games, the titles, all of it -- is because the teams, players, and fans imbue those things with greater meaning. Trades like the two the Rays made today are a good, unwelcome reminder that it's all a form of kayfabe.
July 28, 2024 at 2:55 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
What are we doing here? www.tampabay.com/sports/rays/...
Tampa Bay Times headline that reads: "Would another team be willing to take Wander Franco off the Rays’ hands?"
July 27, 2024 at 10:23 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Truly enjoy the Mad Libs quality of this paragraph from an old Peter Gammons column: www.espn.com/gammons/s/06...
Rocco Baldelli? Baldelli is an outfielder from Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, R.I., and just might be the best prospect in Monday's draft. Patriots -- and former Cleveland Browns -- coach Bill Belichick called friends with the Indians and told them Rocco might be "the best athlete I've ever seen."
June 13, 2024 at 8:04 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
This tweet is funny on its own, but gets funnier when you realize the player in question (José Soriano) was someone the Pirates took in the Rule 5 draft and didn't keep.
Only a Pirates broadcast would cite a guy carving up the *Pirates* lineup as a example of the Pirates “acumen for talent acquisition”
May 8, 2024 at 5:36 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
The first thing you see after you die:
Mr. Met clouded by smoke, giving him an ethereal aesthetic.
April 29, 2024 at 11:15 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Rays lefty Tyler Alexander is fascinating in one respect: you rarely see pitchers who have this many offerings and so few that feature "drop"—he’s almost exclusively an east-west pitcher.
A pitch movement chart where most of the pitches have 0 inches or more of vertical movement.
April 20, 2024 at 12:07 AM
rjandersonwrites.com
One of the most cursed headlines I've stumbled upon in some time.
A screenshot of a headline that reads: "AI deciphers Twin Peaks: a deep dive into the cult classic."
April 17, 2024 at 11:30 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
Hardly a novel observation, but it’s jarring to compare how much advertising is forced upon baseball viewers now versus, say, in 1998. Not even in the form of commercials or sponsorships, either; just what's present during play:
Kerry Wood's 20-K game in 1998 features zero ads behind the plate. Shota Imanaga's 2024 start features at least three visible ads behind the plate.
April 8, 2024 at 11:51 PM
rjandersonwrites.com
The Tampa Bay area being on the other end of these talks is evidence of a humorous universe, because Tampa Bay used to be MLB's best port for delivering new stadiums to its teams. Leeds tells of a potentially apocryphal story from the pre-Rays era. In the story, a marketing executive is meeting with baseball owners. The executive tells the owners he's going to show them a picture of the game's most important stadium. He reveals a photo of Tropicana Field. "But there's no team there," the confused owners object. "Exactly," the executive replies.
April 3, 2024 at 3:32 PM