The Juice: Shelby Miller retires 27 straight Rockies in one-hit shutout - Yahoo! Sports

It looks like Cardinals RHP wanted to announce his presence with authority.

from Yahoo Sports:
The Juice: Shelby Miller retires 27 straight Rockies in one-hit shutout; Jon Lester one-hits Blue Jays | Big League Stew - Yahoo! Sports:

A remarkable Friday night for starting pitchers was highlighted by the dazzling performance of St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Shelby Miller. The 22-year-old was basically untouchable, allowing only an Eric Young Jr. single leading off the game en route to his first career complete game shutout and a 3-0 victory for St. Louis.

That's right, Miller retired 27 batters in a row (with 13 strikeouts) and essentially equaled a perfect game, but had to settle for one of the most dominant one-hit performances we've seen in recent history. So dominant, in fact, that according to Yahoo!'s own Jeff Passan, only 18 pitchers have posted a higher nine-inning game score than Miller's 98 since 1916.

'via Blog this'

Miller's results were a little better than Nuke's

from Bull Durham:

2013 MLB Predictions

Because last year's predictions went so well. (NOT!!)
http://slavieboy.blogspot.com/2012/04/2012-mlb-predictions.html
This is my predicted order of finish and number of wins for each team for the 2013 season:

AL East:
Rays 90
Blue Jays 90
Yankees 86
Orioles 82
Red Sox 78

AL Central:
Tigers 95
Royals 82
White Sox 80
Indians 75
Twins 63

AL West:
Angels 90
A's 88
Rangers 86
Mariners 78
Astros 50

Blue Jays over A's and Rays over Yankees in 1st Round

Tigers over Blue Jays and Rays over Angels in 2nd Round

Rays over Tigers to advance to W/S

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NL East:
Nationals 95
Braves 95
Phillies 85
Mets 65
Marlins 56

NL Central:
Reds 95
Cardinals 90
Brewers 80
Pirates 77
Cubs 67

NL West:
Giants 92
Dodgers 90
D-Backs 84
Padres 85
Rockies 69


Giants over Braves and Dodgers over Cardinals in 1st Round

Giants over Nationals and Dodgers over Reds in 2nd Round

Giants over Dodgers to advance to W/S

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 Giants over Rays in the World Series!!!!

Not one of ten Baseball America prognosticators had the Giants even appearing in the World Series to defend. Three had the Rays appearing with 2/3 picking the Rays to win it all.
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To the awards shows.

MVP:
BUSTER POSEY - NL or Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates
JOSH HAMILTON - AL

CY YOUNG:
KERSHAW - NL
VERLANDER - AL

Again, a good year for rookies.

ROTY - AL:
JURICKSON PROFAR, SS RANGERS
TAIJUAN WALKER RHP MARINERS
DANNY HULTZEN LHP MARINERS
WILL MYERS OF RAYS
TREVOR BAUER RHP INDIANS
DYLAN BUNDY RHP ORIOLES

ROTY - NL:
SHELBY MILLER RHP CARDINALS
JEDD GYORKO 3B-2B PADRES
CHRISTIAN YELLICH OF MARLINS
OSCAR TAVERAS OF CARDINALS
ZACK WHEELER RHP METS
GERRITT COLE RHP PIRATES
MATT HARVEY RHP METS
JOSE FERNANDEZ RHP MARLINS
BILLY HAMILTON OF REDS

Minor League Leaderboard Context | FanGraphs Baseball

The following article from Fan Graphs provides a couple of useful illustrations of a very basic tool you can use to identify the next star or super-star within your favorite organization. It looks at relative age of the prospect versus the average prospect in the league at the different levels of professional development. Once you are aware of the average age for each level of minor league play, you can quickly scan your organizations roster and quickly identify the "high-risers" -- the early developers -- within the organization.

Even in youth baseball, if you see a 9-10 year old competing well against 11-12 year olds in baseball -- even though most leagues "try" to keep players together by age (LL coaches are crafty at circumventing league rules) -- you know you have a player who is, in effect, "playing beyond his years".  As the "growth curve" evens out through the high-school years and kids become professionals, the same principle holds true. If a prospect hits AA ball at 19-20 years old and is competing against older players and holding his own or excelling, he stamps himself as a legit future prospect that bears watching. Impress your friends by mentioning the guys name as a prospect to watch for down the road and see your "man-cred" go up when one of these guys hits big.

In HS ball, you hear the description of the future stud as one who is a "man among boys". When that kid gets drafted and plays professionally, the opposite effect takes place and all of a sudden he becomes a "boy among men".  Some kids don't handle that transition well and it slows or ends their development.

The successful player is generally one who continues to demonstrate that he is "gifted beyond his years".  Think Ken Griffey, Jr. or A-Rod with Seattle and more recently Bryce Harper of the Nationals. They all hit big early and advanced rapidly. This is the path the future super-stars of baseball generally take.

One caveat is that different organizations may have a tendency to advance players at a slower rate than others depending on the organizational philosophy. Sometimes need plays a factor, but not as often in this free-agent era. It seems like in this era, the big markets are more patient or conservative (they can afford to be and they can cover mistakes easier). The small market teams are the land of prospect opportunity. A good prospect can help ticket sales and generate a buzz.

Nobody wants to be accused of "rushing" a big-time prospect and damaging his "psyche" (think Mark Sanchez). IMO, talent ultimately advances or retards a players development. If his psyche is damaged that easily, you may have learned something early that you were going to find out eventually anyway.

Organizations are different and opportunity is the key for any prospect. Sometimes good ones are locked somewhat by veterans and an organization can afford to be patient. For example, the Giants seem to play more to the right side of the second table (below), which illustrates in % terms whether or not your favorite prospect is advancing relative to his peers historically.

If a player takes a trip up that golden staircase illustrated below or too the left of it, he is blazing a path led by 10-15% or less of all previous players recently. If he is to the right of the staircase, it's no guarantee of failure or prospect disgrace, BUT IT AIN'T GOOD!!! 

Anyway, impress your friends , impress your family or just amuse yourselves quietly at home.

BTW:

Using this criteria, the guys I would keep an eye on this year as future ROTY prospects are:

Jurickson Profar, SS Texas
Wil Myers, OF Tampa
Shelby Miller, P St. Louis
Julio Teheran, P Atlanta
Martin Perez, P Seattle
Casey Kelly, P San Diego
Jameson Taillon, P Pittsburgh
Christian Yelich, OF Florida
Taijuan Walker, P Seattle

I would have Manny Machado, SS Orioles on the list except he does not qualify for ROTY due to his early call-up last season, but he fits the mold.

from FanGraphs.com:
Minor League Leaderboard Context | FanGraphs Baseball:

Below is a table of Minor League levels and their respective average ages. This is not meant to be an end-all be-all for the precise implications of age in MiLB, but rather to serve as a baseline to help give you some perspective while looking into the Minor League Leaderboard (further research will be done to look at the correlation of age and level with future Major League production).

Level	Average Age
AAA	28.2
AA	23.8
A+	22.4
A	21.2
A-	20.9
R	19.4

The average age per level gives you some context for the MiLB Leaderboard, but average age is just a starting point. Statistics, framed with context, can be very informative, but without context, can be hollow. The converse however, is not the case. We can learn a lot about a prospect purely from his context. Because a player’s level is dictated by his front office, the level where he plays gives us insight into what management (which, in theory is more informed about their players than any analytic body) thinks about said player. Below is a table with the cumulative percentage of players of each age in each league:

AGE	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28
AAA	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	3.3%	7.0%	12.6%	22.4%	37.4%	48.6%	61.2%	70.6%
AA	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%	1.8%	9.0%	24.6%	46.1%	68.9%	83.8%	92.8%	97.0%	98.2%
A+	0.0%	0.0%	2.5%	12.4%	26.1%	54.0%	75.8%	90.1%	97.5%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
A	0.0%	2.4%	15.6%	34.1%	52.1%	80.2%	97.0%	98.8%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
A-	0.8%	3.9%	19.4%	31.0%	63.6%	89.1%	98.4%	99.2%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
R	6.8%	24.6%	53.1%	73.4%	85.3%	94.6%	99.2%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%

Looking at the table above, we see that only 7% of players in Triple-A are 22 years old or younger. The bold diagonal lines, which starts from 17-year-olds in rookie ball and moves up and to the right to 22 year olds in Triple-A, outlines the path of elite prospects. The corner in the bottom right, shaded in red, shows the where players are “old” for their level.

'via Blog this'

2012 MLB Predictions

This is my predicted order of finish and number of wins for each team for the 2012 season:

AL East:
Yankees 96
Rays 89
Red Sox 87
Blue Jays 81
Orioles 68

AL Central:
Tigers 95
Royals 83
Indians 78
White Sox 68
Twins 66

AL West:
Rangers 96
Angels 94
Mariners 71
Athletics 67

Angels over Yankees
Rangers over Tigers

Angels over Rangers in ALCS

---------------


NL East:
Phillies 92
Braves 86
Marlins 83
Nationals 81
Mets 70

NL Central:
Cards 92
Reds 87
Brewers 82
Cubs 73
Pirates 68
Astros 66

NL West:
Diamondbacks 87
Giants 87
Dodgers 81
Rockies 81
Padres 75

The race for the wild-card will be a three team race between the Giants., Reds and Braves to be won by the Giants in some goofy tie-breaker fashions instead of on the field.

Phillies beat Giants
Cardinals beat Diamondbacks

Phillies beat Cardinals in NLCS

Phillies over Angels in the World Series.

----------

To the awards shows.

MVP:
PUJOLS - AL
UPTON - NL

CY YOUNG:
KERSHAW - NL
HERNANDEZ - AL

It's going to be a good year for rookies.

ROTY - AL:
MATT MOORE, RAYS
MIKE TROUT, ANGELS
JESUS MONTERO, MARINERES
JACOB TURNER, TIGERS
DYLAN BUNDY, ORIOLES

ROTY - NL:
GERRIT COLE, PIRATES
SHELBY MILLER, CARDINALS
TREVOR BAUER, D-BACKS
BRYCE HARPER, NATS
JULIO TEHERAN, BRAVES

2011 ROTY Candidates

GIANTS BRANDON BELT - REPEAT ROTY FOR THE GIGANTES?

The top ROTY candidates for 2011. It could come down to the Giants and the Braves dueling bats in the NL -- Freeman and Belt -- in a repeat of last years Heyward-Posey duel. I would like Chapman for the Reds more if he started rather than came out of the bullpen.

In the AL, I like either one of the two Rays pitchers, Hellickson or McGee, to win. I like Ackely for the Mariners as well. Sale or Drabek would not be a surprise either.

NL:

ATL - Freddie Freeman, 1B if he was not the real deal, Braves work harder to keep DLee
ATL - Craig Kimbrel, RHP could close, if he does will rack up stats
ATL - Mike Minor, LHP brutally effective, if unspectacular
PHI - Dominic Brown, OF all the tools, just needs the PT
SF - Brandon Belt, 1B-OF will give all the other candidate a month head start, a la Posey
WAS - Bryce Harper, OF all or none swing may struggle at times, will make highlights
CIN - Aroldis Chapman, LHP lights up radar guns everywhere
CIN - Yonder Alonzo, C needs PT
CHI - Brett Jackson, OF Quade may go young more so than Piniella, Cubs fans thankful
PIT - Jameson Tailon, RHP very young but may be one of the best the Bucs have, potential top of the rotation guy
STL - Shelby Miller, RHP injuries may force Cards hand, easy velocity in this arm

AL:

TB - Jake McGee, LHP could close for Rays
TB - Matt Moore, LHP may have three plus pitches, future ace / top of rotation starter
TB - Jeremy Hellickson, RHP brutally effective
TB - Desmond Jennings, OF all the tools for future greatness
BAL - Manny Macahdo, SS big, athletic hitter, still only 18 years old but comparisons to A-Rod are not met with giggles
CHI - Chris Sale, LHP starter or closer. I like him as a starter better, but who knows?
TOR - Kyle Drabek, RHP great bloodlines
TOR - J.P. Arenciba, C another kid who can rake, anywhere, anytime
KC - Mike Maustakas, 3B this kid can drive the ball
KC - Eric Hosmer, 1B hits mistake a long way, advanced as a hitter
KC - Wil Myers OF-C may have better chance of sticking as OF, bat plays better as C prospect
NYY - Jesus Montero, C If the Yankees push Posada to DH?
CAL - Mike Trout, OF has been compared to Mantle, gaudy stuff for a kid
SEA - Dustin Ackley, 2B this kids just rakes and rakes and rakes
SEA - Michael Pineda, RHP future rotation-mate for Felix