The SIS Baseball Podcast

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by national baseball writer Hannah Keyser and SIS operations analyst Brandon Tew.

Hannah, who formerly wrote for Yahoo Sports, introduced us to her thrice-weekly baseball newsletter, The Bandwagon, which she co-authors with Zach Crizer. She shared what early-season baseball happenings surprised her and 'confirmed her priors.' 

Then she played along and guessed at the members of 'The All-Scrapes Team' (or 'The All-Ouch Team') - players who have dove for balls the most over the last 3 seasons. Mark also shared which players are the most effective at diving for balls at each position.

Brandon, who writes regularly for SportsInfoSolutions.com (see his articles on Roki Sasaki and Tomoyuki Sugano), is SIS' resident expert in Japanese baseball pitchers and their performance in the major leagues. He delved into the pitching approaches of Sasaki, Sugano, Shota Imanaga, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And he talked about everyone's new favorite pitch, the kick-change (a variant of a changeup).

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Bluesky at @sportsinfosolutions.com, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

On this episode, Mark Simon welcomes Washington Post national baseball writer Chelsea Janes, Cleveland Guardians minor league assistant hitting coach Amanda Kamekona, and children’s book author Myra Faye Turner, who gave us a Women’s History month baseball lesson.

Mark and Chelsea discussed the best defensive teams entering 2025, underachievers in 2024 who could be in for big years this season, players with injury concerns, sleeper MVP and Cy Young picks, and predicted LCS and World Series matchups.

Amanda shared the story of her path to pro baseball and the work she focuses on as a minor league coach. She explained what she likes to use in terms of stats and video analysis, how she helps hitters with the mental challenges of a long season, and the mentors that have helped her.

Myra Faye talked about her book, Hitting Her Way to the Negro Leagues: A Graphic Novel Biography of Toni Stone. She detailed Toni’s story and how her determination helped her overcome gender barriers to play baseball for the Indianapolis Clowns. It’s a story worth knowing.

The SIS Baseball Podcast moves to a bi-weekly schedule during the season, so you can catch us again in two weeks.

Check out our 2021 talk on our injury prediction tool! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_iPVOY6TiU&t=744s&pp=ygUdam9obiBzaGlybGV5IG1hdHQgbWFub2NoZXJpYW7SBwkJvQCDtaTen9Q%3D

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

For our 5th annual episode with a connection to Black History Month, Mark Simon is joined by Missouri head baseball coach Kerrick Jackson, and Adam Giardino and Grayson Singleton of the Black Play-By-Play Broadcaster & Scholarship Fund.

Kerrick is the first Black head baseball coach in SEC history. He shared the story of his career path and influences, explained how data and analytics have become a big part of his job, and explained why his school is participating in this weekend's Andre Dawson Classic, competing against HBCU colleges (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). 

Adam explained why he founded the fund and how it has helped aspiring play-by-play broadcasters, including Grayson, a sports broadcaster (including baseball) in Oklahoma with a great voice and a love for telling stories. You can donate to the fund at https://www.blackpxpfund.com/.

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

On this episode of the Sports Info Solutions Baseball Podcast, we devote the entire episode to exploring the Baseball Hall of Fame from different angles.

- Former Mariners outfielder Mike Cameron shares the story of how Ichiro Suzuki made him a better defensive center fielder.

- MLB senior database architect, book author, and inventor of baseball stats Tom Tango gave his recommendations for how to evaluate pitchers for the Baseball Hall of Fame moving forward.

- And show host Mark Simon explained why he's looking forward to two years from now, when he'll be casting votes for Chase Utley and Félix Hernández.

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

We close out 2024 by asking two people what they'll remember.

First we ask recently-retired (and new father) Kevin Kiermaier about the defensive plays he'll most remember from his career. He's the overall leader in Defensive Runs Saved by a center fielder. We also talked to Kevin about what it was like to play for the Dodgers and got a specific example on how their advance scouting paid off.

Then we talked to baseball writer Sam Miller about the most memorable things from the 2024 season (spoiler alert: there's a lot of Shohei Ohtani). We also had a discussion about what gets remembered and what doesn't, and what the things we'll most remember about this year's potential Hall of Fame inductees will be.

Click to see the 5 plays Kevin Kiermaier talked about

Catch vs Wyatt Langford
Throw-out of Brice Turang
Catch vs Francisco Mejia
Throw-out of Ronald Acuña Jr.
HR robbery vs Manny Machado

You can find Sam's articles online at pebblehunting.substack.com
Finding the single memory that defines each baseball season
2024 edition Part 1
2024 edition Part 2

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

On this episode, Mark Simon takes a break from talking defense (mostly) by welcoming in Sean Smith. Sean, a former consultant for the Blue Jays, is the inventor of the WAR you see on Baseball-Reference.com and the author of the new book, War In Pieces, a documenting of how he put it together and an explanation of how it works. The book's chapters are short and not hard to understand, with lots of pertinent historical examples.

Sean talked about the impact the stat has had within baseball, his perspective on WAR's usefulness in evaluating players, replacement level, win probability, the impact of Bill James on his work, and David Eckstein's justifiable 20-WAR career.

For more of Sean's work, visit his website https://baseballprojection.com/

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

We talked to so many Fielding Bible Award winners that we couldn't fit them all into one episode.

On this episode we talked to Award winners Cleveland Guardians pitcher Tanner Bibee and Braves first baseman Matt Olson.

Bibee shared some of the keys to his success in holding baserunners (he allowed 6 stolen bases in 12 attempts but also had 4 pickoffs) and explained what it's like when a 105-MPH ground ball comes right back at you (watch Bibee pick off Shohei Ohtani HERE)

Olson went through some of his favorite plays in 2024 and discussed the preparation that goes into being so good at first base (watch the behind-the-back play Matt talked about - HERE)

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

Thursday, Sports Info Solutions announced the winners of The 2024 Fielding Bible Awards. Each year since 2006 our voters have picked the best defensive player at each position. This year, we’ve added a Defensive Player of the Year award to the mix.

Mark Simon ran through the winners and shared what makes them great defensive players. We also talked to Tigers left fielder Riley Greene, Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle and Red Sox right fielder Wilyer Abreu about their seasons and one of our voters, Ben Clemens from FanGraphs, about his voting process.

Ben's article about his vote- Part I & Part II

Thanks as always for listening. Please check out the new-and-improved FieldingBible.com website, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].

On this episode, Mark Simon is joined by one of the top defensive players in the minor leagues, A's outfield prospect Colby Thomas, to talk about how he does what he does in the outfield.

Mark also talked to Chelsea Janes of The Washington Post and Tyler Kepner of The Athletic for our 4th annual look at the surprises of the 2024 season. These included the Jose Iglesias, Ronel Blanco, Christopher Sánchez, as well as the Tigers, Guardians, and Blue Jays, plus others as well.

Mark also coaxes a World Series winner pick out of both of them.

Thank you for listening. Please check out Archive.FieldingBible.com for your defensive stats needs, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].  

On this episode, host Mark Simon (@markasimonsays) is joined by Giants right fielder Mike Yastrzemski (@mikeyaz18) and Brewers broadcaster Vinny Rottino (@vinnyrottino) for a pair of discussions on defensive excellence. Mark was also joined by his SIS colleague Noah Gatsik (@iamthatnoah).

Mark and Mike talked about Yaz's love of defenses from his days as a little kid using the sofa to mimic an outfield fence to the challenges of playing Triples Alley at Oracle Park. Mike also talked about his open-mindedness to learning and how that helped him pick up Jung Hoo Lee's throwing technique.

Mark and Vinny went through the Brewers' defensive studs, looking at what makes players like Brice Turang, Blake Perkins, Sal Frelick, and Joey Ortiz so good. Vinny also talked about his favorite jack-of-all-trades major leaguer.

And then Mark and Noah talked about scouting and the lessons Noah picked up from a conversation with Barry Larkin and how he's never watched infield play the same way again.

Be sure to check out "How Mike Yastrzemski owns the outfield" with Mike and Hunter Pence on the Giants YouTube page.

Thank you for listening. Please check out Archive.FieldingBible.com for your defensive stats needs, follow us on Twitter at @sis_baseball, and read our work at SportsInfoSolutions.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected].