An Analysis of Joe Girardi's Suitors in the 2013 Off-Season

Hey Joe, where you goin' with that contract in hand?

On Domonic Brown's Power Outburst

Domonic Brown just had himself one incredible month of May. What's truly crazy about the month Domonic Brown just had, however, is the complete lack of walks.

As in, Domonic Brown walked zero times in May.

12 HRs, 0 BBs.

In fact, he's the only hitter in major league history with nine or more home runs in a single month while failing to draw a walk. As the calendar has flipped to June, the story has continued to gain steam. He's locked in at the plate right now in an almost unthinkable manner. Currently, Brown leads the NL and is second in the major leagues with 19 home runs, one behind league leader Chris "Crush" Davis of the Orioles. Coming into this season, Brown had hit a grand total of twelve home runs in roughly one full season's worth of games between 2010 and 2012.

His ISO (isolated power) stands at a remarkable .299, while his slugging percentage is a powerful .588 in 2013. Only six players in the major leagues have slugging percentages higher than the number Domonic Brown currently possesses, and three of them (Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez, and Michael Cuddyer) play half their games in the forgiving power-hitting confines of Coors Field. The other three are the pre-eminent hitter in the game (Miguel Cabrera), the game's best current pure power hitter (Chris Davis), and the breakout first baseman for Arizona, Paul Goldschmidt. When relegated to just ISO, only Chris Davis (.369) and Carlos Gonzalez (.318) sport a higher rate of isolated power in 2013 than Domonic Brown (.299).

That is certainly some welcoming company to have alongside one's name. Yet this explosion of a former top prospect came almost out of nowhere. Phillies fans anticipated Domonic Brown playing, but few would have imagined a breakout season like the one he's having thus far. All of this begs the question: what lies behind Brown's new-found power?

The League-Wide Rise in Strikeouts: Aberration, or the New Norm?

As pointed out by HardBallTalk through Buster Olney (in turn through the Elias Sports Bureau), April 2013 saw the highest number of strikeouts by batters in any month in baseball history. Moreover, as pointed out by Jason Linden of HardBallTimes, baseball is currently on pace to sport as many as 10 to 13 batters with 200 or more strikeouts. There has never been a season in Major League Baseball history which has seen more than one batter eclipse the once-dreaded 200-strikeout barrier. What does this mean for the game?

Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of Four Starters

This season, while still early, is writing the final chapters in the careers of four starters to have thrown no-hitters.

Elvis Lives! The Andrus Contract Extension and Implications for Texas

Early Monday, the Texas Rangers chose to lock up their starting shortstop Elvis Andrus with an eight-year, $120,000,000 extension that will take him through his prime seasons.

The off-season's biggest winners, 2012-13: #s 5-1

Continuing with my list of the off-season's biggest winners, we have the top five, after the jump.

The off-season's biggest winners, 2012-13: #s 10-6

The 2012-13 off-season has been chock full of surprises, so it is clearly a difficult task to analyze what were ten of the better moves of the off-season. To make this task slightly easier, I have chosen to analyze the biggest winners of this past off-season. The aim was to focus on individuals, but there were a few teams that upgraded so significantly that it was impossible to exclude them from such a list.

With that in mind, I've ranked my ten biggest winners. After the jump, the bottom five.