Leon Boyd, the Dutch-Canuck Blue Jay

A couple of interesting posts from the Canadutch blog of Leon Boyd, the Dutch-Canadian pitcher who was the closer for the both Dutch wins over the Dominican Republic in the 2009 WBC. One about the daily routine in the Toronto Blue Jays camp in Dunedin, Florida, and another with a collection of links and photos to interesting articles about his Dutch exploits.

WBC Pitch f/x

Some interesting WBC Pitch f/x articles for Japanese, Korean, and Cuban pitchers for their games pitched in MLB parks, these are normally data that are not seen or available, either in these pitchers home countries or in the US. The websites BeyondTheBoxscore and FanGraphs are doing a great job gathering and breaking down the data, so I’m just gonna link to them here (also for posterity since these articles are already getting buried under the usual barrage of MLB articles). All articles are interesting.

Yu Darvish (Japan) – FanGraphs, BeyondTheBoxscore (satisfying all observers with his stuff)

Hisashi Iwakuma (Japan) – FanGraphs (getting rave reviews for his pitch selection)

Ryu Hyun-Jin (Korea) – FanGraphs

Yoon Suk-Min (Korea) – BeyondTheBoxscore

Felix (Venezuela), LaMura and Cody Cirillo (Italy, the latter with his 67mph “changeup”) – BeyondTheBoxscore 

Cuban pitchers who pitched in their first game against Japan (from wild Chapman to Maya to Vladimir Garcia) – BeyondTheBoxscore

Wily Cuban veterans Vera and Lazo (and his 57mph somthing) in their elimination game against Japan – BeyondTheBoxscore

HardballTimes also has analyzed Pitch f/x data from Round 1 and Round 2 featuring pitchers in the Toronto Round (Yoel Hernandez, DiFelice, Mestri, Cillo), and the 2nd Round in Florida (Leon Boyd, who pitched himself into the Toronto Blue Jays organization, congrats!) and San Diego (Chapman, Vladimir Garcia, Oliver Perez).

Added: Hisashi Iwakuma and Kyuji Fujikawa (Japan), and Bong Jung-Keun and Ryu Hyun-Jin (Korea) – Hardball Times

WBC pitch speeds, they were generally slower than during the regular season showing that pitchers are not ready in March, not a big surprise. The pitcher with the most decline in velocity was Matsuzaka, which is kinda surprising considering he was training from January – BeyondTheBoxscore

The Dutch-Canadian pitcher and recent Toronto Blue Jays signee Leon Boyd – one, two

NHL Premiere 2009

NHL がまたまた欧州のホッケー大国でシーズンを開幕します。2009年は10月2-3日にフィンランドのヘルシンキでフロリダ・パンサーズ対シカゴ・ブラックホークス、そしてまたスウェーデンのストックホルムでデトロイト・レッドウィングス対セントルイス・ブルース。それにしてもチケット代がかなり高いみたいです。フィンランドでは97ユーロから249ユーロ、Jokerit 対パンサーズの強化試合は37ユーロから115ユーロともっとお手ごろです。ストックホルムに来るレッドウィングスにはスウェーデン人選手が多く在籍してるから、チケットが売れるあてがあるけど、フロリダとセントルイスには目立ったフィンランド人スターはいないはず。初開催というだけで、満員にできるのかな？