A switch in the medium in this edition of Smart Elsewhere. Having a long commute to work, I consume a lot of my baseball information via podcast. On the 4/16/13 edition of the “Eye on Baseball Rumors” podcast from CBSSports.com, Carson Cistulli (follow Carson on Twitter) joins Chris Cwik (follow Chris on Twitter) to discuss a couple of recent minor league promotions.
Click the button below to launch iTunes and be taken to the podcast page, then play the 4/16 episode.
Here are the highlights:
- 13:00 – 18:05 minutes – Didi Gregorius’ abilities, his likelihood to stick in the majors (he should be competent defensively and offensively, his plate approach has improved, and he may be able to stick around if he can outplay Cliff Pennington)
- 18:05 – 24:50 minutes – Tony Cingrani’s pitching approach, his heavy reliance upon the fastball and pitching deception, and the likelihood he’ll succeed in the major leagues (there are very few starting pitchers who rely as heavily upon the fastball as Cingrani and have any measure of success, it will be very unusual if he is able to succeed for a long period of time)
I’ll warn you that Cistulli does not give his analysis from a fantasy baseball focus. The analysis of Gregorius and Cingrani covers their skills and their “real-life” baseball merits. But the information is great and can be applied to your own fantasy leagues. The entire episode does run over 50 minutes. Outside of the 11 minutes mentioned above, Cistulli briefly discusses Brett Lawrie and then goes more in depth into his work at Fangraphs and as a baseball writer.
Cistulli is a writer for Fangraphs.com and the host of the (link will launch iTunes and direct you to the Fangraphs Baseball podcast), which comes highly regarded as well (certain episodes at least, he’ll preface any episode with a disclaimer if it doesn’t contain baseball analysis).
As always, let me know what you’re reading or listening to. Leave a comment below or shoot me a link on Twitter.
Keep making smart choices.
