Brian McCann was dominating the National League when Buster Posey was playing shortstop as a freshman at Savannah State. There’s a new sheriff behind the dish.

There’s no greater feeling as a franchise than having a young, cheap catcher who rakes on offense and is above-average behind the plate. Braves fans can tell you all about it. From 2006-2011 Brian McCann averaged an OPS+ of 129, made every All-Star team, and sold wine for charity. This year, McCann has struggled to the tune of .240/.303/.426 while Posey has shaken off any potential injury rust with .302/.374/.479. Without completely counting McCann out on 290 plate appearances, I’m gonna pencil Posey in for the next five All-Star games. Yea, at least five. Continue reading →

Wow.

Tonight’s game was so masterful, I’m almost at a loss for words to describe it. Madison Bumgarner was the best I’ve ever seen him, shutting down a good lineup like they were the Rangers on Halloween. He pitched in, out, up, down, and made one simple mistake of not intentionally walking Ryan Hanigan.

But man, that slider. It deserves a postgame wrap of its own. Bumgarner threw his slider 38 times – he threw his four-seamer only 37 times – and got a ridiculous 10 whiffs with his slider out of 31 thrown for strikes.

And strikes. Strikes. So many strikes. Bum threw 72 strikes out of 107 total pitches, with 9 of those balls coming in a 16-pitch first inning, and never went over 14 pitches in an inning after that. He was phenomenal, throwing pitches in the strike zone that nobody could hit. It’s an underrated talent, but an important one.

For example, look at Bumgarner’s PitchFX for tonight based on At-bat result. Continue reading →

Before Tim Lincecum became Barry Zito, Barry Zito was Tim Lincecum.

Given Barry Zito’s horrid career on the Giants, it’s easy to forget that he used to be really quite good. Vintage Zito wasn’t quite as dominant as vintage Lincecum, but he was the model of reliability, posting 3-something ERAs almost every year, while never missing a start. The contract that he signed was absolutely ridiculous, but when he became a free agent he was definitely a valuable commodity, and nothing obvious pointed to a massive collapse on the horizon.

Continue reading →