Johnny Lumsden, Author at Johnny L's Baseball Clubhouse

Why Did the Braves Trade Justin Upton?

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Johnny Lumsden — 14 Comments ↓

On Friday, December 19th the Braves finally traded Justin Upton, after all the rumors swirling around for over a month. Atlanta decided to send J. Upton and pitcher Aaron Northcraft to the Padres in exchange for left-hander top prospect Max Fried, Jace Peterson, Dustin Peterson, Mallex Smith and the Padres’ 4th international bonus pool slot. Justin Upton will now join the other newly required Padre outfielders in Matt Kemp and Wil Myers. As for Atlanta, they get a pretty nice group of prospects, in exchange for losing their star left fielder. But, was getting rid of Upton (upcoming 2015 free Continue reading Why Did the Braves Trade Justin Upton?→

Royals Add 2 Right-handers to Rotation; Move on From Shields

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Johnny Lumsden — No Comments ↓

On Wednesday the 17th and Thursday the 18th, the Royals signed starting pitchers Edinson Volquez along with Kris Medlen. The Volquez contract is worth $20 million over two years and the Medlen contract is worth $8.5 over two years, with $10 million in incentives. The signing of both, signals that the Royals are preparing to say goodbye to James Shields, as Medlen and Volquez will replace Big Game James in the starting rotation. Edinson will most likely be the more solid replacement as Medlen is still recovering from Tommy John surgery, and might not be eligible to start until mid-season Continue reading Royals Add 2 Right-handers to Rotation; Move on From Shields→

What is “FIP” and why is it so important?

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Johnny Lumsden — 2 Comments ↓

Fielding Independent Pitching (or FIP) is a metric designed to give us information about pitcher performance. FIP measures the events that are directly under a pitcher’s control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs. From there, a calculation is used to scale these events to a number very similar to the one you’ll find for ERA. It is a “rate” statistic, that resembles how many runs a pitcher might give up per nine innings, given these peripherals. So basically it is a pitcher’s ERA if the team’s defense is not factored in. When looking at how well a pitcher’s season went, don’t Continue reading What is “FIP” and why is it so important?→

White Sox find their #2 Pitcher and Bulk Up Bullpen

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Johnny Lumsden — 6 Comments ↓

The Winter Meetings in San Diego might have been one of the busiest meetings over the last 10 years, as many teams made some noise by signing big names or making blockbuster trades. Some of the main teams to highlight at the meetings were the Dodgers, Red Sox, and Cubs, but one team to go speeding under the radar was the Chicago White Sox. After signing left-handed reliever Zach Duke weeks before the Winter Meetings, they then keep it going by adding Samardzija and David Robertson, while in San Diego. On December 9th the White Sox sent infielder Marcus Semien, Continue reading White Sox find their #2 Pitcher and Bulk Up Bullpen→