High & Inside: 5/12/11

Baseball links from around the sabersphere...

• Don’t Worry Miguel: The 10 Worst Giant SS Seasons of All-time | Bay City Ball
  Miguel Tejada's been awful, but the legend of Johnnie LeMaster lives on...
• Jason Kubel Versus Left-Handed Pitching | Twinkie Town
  

  Kubel is obviously seeing the ball well this season, his overall line tells us that. And maybe this year will just be one of those years where, even though he's clearly not an ideal bat to start versus a lefty, he won't be as terribile as he's been in seasons past. I'd still express doubts if anyone wanted to argue that this was a turning point for his weakness in this regard.

• Is this last year or not? | Nationals Baseball
  

  While last year the Nats had has-beens and never will-bes giving them terrible offense for much of the season, this year they have a couple of young players with potential.

• Spinning Yarn: Speed Traps | Baseball Prospectus
  

  Only one number, however, routinely makes the scoreboard and the television screen on every pitch—the speed.

• Q&A: Felix Hernandez | Fangraphs
  An interview with Felix Hernandez.

More links after the jump...

• Triples come and triples go | Baseball Reference Blog
  

  107 times a guy had 6 triples in his team's first 36 games, but not a single one of those guys kept that pace up for the entire season.

• Where will regression take the Marlins’ offense? | Marlin Maniac
  

  If this set of players receives around 3600 PA for the rest of the year and performs as projected, the Marlins could gain an additional nine wins.

• Is the Cutter Responsible for the Decline in Offense? | The Yankee Analysts
  

  Considering that much of the cutter’s growth has come at the expense of the fastball, it’s probably safe to assume the pitch has played at least a small role in the lower homerun totals.

• Scouting Report on Red Sox/Spinners 1B Boss Moanaroa | Penn League Report
  

  As you can imagine, only being nineteen years of age and still getting acclimated to a new style of play and a new country to say the least, he's got a long way to go but has all the potential built in to his thick and powerful frame and the Sox definitely think highly of him.

• Defense Is Important, But… | Royals Authority
  

  In those ten games in which Getz makes four defensive plays Aviles does not (again assuming Getz is the best defender in the game and Aviles the worst), Aviles would not only get a hit, but get an EXTRA BASE HIT five more times than Getz would. So, what is more valuable? Four defensive plays made or five extra base hits?