Baseball Beyond Batting Average

Mark and Andy bring you the fifth out of six episodes in their Mount Rushmores series, in which they determine the faces for the teams of the National League West. This may have been the most difficult division to date, as each team presented decisions that could have gone any of several different ways. Ultimately though, there can be only four. As always, we hear from listeners and Twitter follow...

Mark and Andy continue their "summer programming" with the next in their series of MLB divisions' Mount Rushmores. This time it's the NL Central, as the 5 current occupants of the division take their turns under the microscope. Twitter followers and podcast listeners chime in with their opinions, comical or serious as they may be, and your hosts sort through it all to illuminate all the faces that...

Mark and Andy wrap up the Mount Rushmores of the American League by naming a top 4 for each team in the American League Central. This episode, just as the previous two, is spiced up with listener submissions and voting. While the listeners' lists are often comical or based on factors other than greatness, the hosts mostly base their lists on the bread-and-butter of the podcast--statistics. Despite...

Mark and Andy are joined by the voice of Wax Ecstatic, Matt Sammon, to tackle the daunting task of coming up with a Mount Rushmore for every current American League East team. Matt lends his expertise as a former Rays employee and Blue Jays fan and general baseball guy and Mark and Andy lend their usual takes incorporating stats and stories. The hosts also attempt to stump their guest with a round...

The debates about who are the ultimate representatives for the Major League Baseball franchises is sure to be lively and bring up differences in opinions and criteria. Mark and Andy give their takes on who should be carved on the mountainside, taking into account many factors, including of course advanced metrics. This first episode in the series limits the scope to just the current American Leagu...

The great Grant McAuley joins Mark and Andy to discuss the spotty history of Braves second basemen. Stories abound for this collection of names, but choosing the best players to man the position in history proved challenging. Most players--from Lemke to Giles to Hornsby--only played the position for a few seasons at most. Did Glenn Hubbard's 1984 Fleer "snake" card make an appearance on the show?...

Todd Helton dominates the Rockies first basemen leaderboards like no other, and although there are only 75 players to have ever manned the position, there are plenty of interesting names, stats, and stories to go around. Mark and Andy go down the path of exploring all the ins and outs of Rockies first sackers, but get sidetracked along the way for conversations about 1990 Topps, the 1983 Seattle M...

Your hosts thought it would be hard to make an episode about only one position for one team. Then they did it. Now, they attempt to fill an entire episode about only two players--Andre Dawson and Steve Garvey. Not only did Mark and Andy do it, but they made their longest episode to date. Be prepared to know more about these two players than you ever wanted to know and decide for yourself on their...

If you're going to commit to doing an episode about every position for every team, that means you're going to have to do a Marlins leftfielders episode. You might be surprised by how many stars have played the position in the franchise's short history, however. While there are plenty of Chris Coghlans and Bryan Petersons, there's also Miggy, Ichiro, Sheff, Rock, and The Hawk. Despite a limited dat...

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been around forever, and their long history affords Mark and Andy the opportunity to dig in deep to the history of their catchers. While a large chunk of time is devoted to more recent names like Jason Kendall, Manny Sanguillen, and Tony Pena, the Doggie Millers and Bill Salkelds get their due as well. Your hosts look at the analytical side of the conversation, as well...

Mark and Andy attempt to rethink the Cy Young Award winners in the 1990s, but find that, because of a handful of dominant starters, most choices were easy. Even looking at the candidates through the lens of advance stats instead of just wins and ERA, there's a lot of Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, and Martinez. That doesn't stop the hosts from making a couple of controversial decisions with the benefit...

Mark and Andy are back with another installment in the every-team-every-position-series, this time with their first Blue Jays episode and their first episode focusing on relief pitchers. You may think they'd be hard pressed to do a whole episode solely on Blue Jays relievers, but you probably had forgotten the contributions of Mark Eichhorn, Roy Lee Jackson, Mark Lemongello, and Dale Murray. The h...

Mark and Andy return with another episode of your favorite baseball stats podcast, this time centering around the players who have manned the "position" of designated hitter for the Milwaukee Brewers. Only having a full-time designated hitter for 25 seasons allows the hosts to really zero in on a large majority of the significant names, so you'll hear about Paul Molitor, Ted Simmons, and Hank Aaro...

Mark and Andy are back with what may be their best episode yet--a sprawling, genre-defying, magnum opus of an ode to St. Louis Cardinals starting pitchers. While obvious names like Bob Gibson and Adam Wainwright get their due, the hosts make sure to include more obscure names like John Fulgham, Silver King, and Memo Luna. Through a close inspection of leaderboards, the true greats rise to the top,...

Mark and Andy get back into the team/position episodes for an exploration of all things Rangers leftfielders. Although Harold Baines was a leftfielder and played for the Rangers, he never played leftfield for the Rangers. That didn't stop the hosts from spending a good bit of time debating his Hall of Fame election. Most of the time was spent analyzing players who actually did play the position fo...

The 2018 season can finally be properly wrapped up, as Mark and Andy are back for their second installment of the BBBA Awards. Along with giving their takes on the existing awards (MVP, Rookie of the Year, Gold Gloves), your hosts give their own recognition to players for accomplishments both good and bad. Among awards that return this year are The Bergen Award, The Tiny Glove, and the Jeter Award...

Your favorite baseball podcast hosts return with another installment in their team/position series, this time exploring every nook and cranny of Pirates first basemen. Find out who the statistical leaders are, who Mark and Andy rank as their top 5 all-time, and some fun and interesting side nuggets along the way. While Stargell and Bream figure prominently in the conversation, detours are taken in...

George Davis, Art Fletcher, Dick Bartell...the names of legendary Giants shortstops just roll off the tongue. Although the tops of the leaderboards of players to man the oxymoronically-named position don't necessarily include household names, there are plenty of other interesting names--Willie Mays, Darrell Evans, and Yale Murphy to name a few--to keep the delve interesting. Mark and Andy cover it...

The dice have spoken and the first random selection of a team and position is...Rays leftfielders! Mark and Andy dive into the brief history of players who have manned the position for Tampa Bay, from the Devil Ray days to the more successful and god-fearing Rays era. Through the lens of advanced stats, the hosts attempt to sort out who besides Carl Crawford belongs among the elite Rays leftfielde...

Mark and Andy are joined by baseball savant Chris Kamka in the next installment in their series of "every team, every position" episodes. Their guest shines light on the history of White Sox catchers in ways previously thought impossible. Every nook and cranny of the South Siders' backstops backstories is explored, both through the lens of advanced statistics and through tidbits and stories that w...

As they did with MVP voting, Mark and Andy revisit the Cy Young voting of the 1980s through the lens of advanced stats to see if the right guys won. In an era in which voting was dominated by wins and saves, the hosts find plenty of room for improvement in the process and shed some light on some stars whose careers have been relatively overlooked but probably deserve some more love. They wrap it a...

Mark and Andy are joined by special guest Mark Simon of Baseball Info Solutions to talk about the complete history of Mets third basemen. The trio delve into not only the greatest, but also the obscure and forgotten, players to man the hot corner in eventful 56-year history of the other New York baseball franchise. While you may know Wright, HoJo, Ventura, and Alfonzo, do you know which Mets third...

Braves reporter Grant McAuley joins Mark and Andy for this deep dive into the storied history of Braves catchers. The result is the most informative episode of BBBA to date, a perfect balance of stories about people and statistical analysis. The familiar segments are here--Top Fives, Best Names, Best Baseball Cards, Leaderboards--all enhanced with McAuley's vast knowledge of all things Braves earn...

The inclusion in and exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame is a continuous source of debate for certain players. Like all things baseball, experts have tried to quantify players' worthiness (and likeliness) of being in the Hall with different statistics. Your hosts Mark and Andy--joined for the first time by a guest, one P. K. Steinberg--break down these numbers and show where they come from an...

Mark and Andy once again explore the MVP voting for a whole decade, in this case the 1990s. Using stats that didn't exist during the era, your hosts decide if the choices that voters made were the correct ones, if some changes need to be made, and if some unnatural substances helped any candidates along the way. Be prepared to be furious that your guys have their awards ripped away or joyous that...