After getting the WARs for every drafted player going back to 1965, the question becomes how to evaluate the value of that draft slot. You can’t just take the average because even after nearly half a century, we still have a fairly small sample size for each draft pick. The average No. 109 pick, for instance, has provided twice the value in history as the No. 18 pick, but there’s nobody in baseball that would rather pick 109th than 18th. Thanks to Mike Piazza, the pick No. 1,390 would look ...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Less than a year removed from his selection in the draft, celebrated prospect Michael Wacha will make his major-league debut Thursday at Busch Stadium against the Kansas City Royals.
While it’s not nearly as easy of debut as it would have once been, this has to be one of the easiest situations they could call him up for with half the pitchers on the team having their arms falling off.
Here’s the thing about Brett Lawrie, the Toronto Blue Jays speeding ticket at third base.
He’s playing baseball — hell, living life — at full throttle. If you don’t get out of his lane he’ll pass you on the right hand side.
Risky? Sure but he’s not looking for your approval; he’s in a hurry. He might get pulled over here and there, but he certainly doesn’t care — or care to give the impression that he cares — about what you or I ...
Hey…at least it ain’t I Think We’re Alone In Last Place Now
So what lies ahead for Starlin Castro? It is decidely so? Outlook not so good? The easy out for the 8-ball would be “reply hazy – try again later.” But I’m going to go with “signs point to yes”. And the sign I’m pointing to is the great Alan Trammell.
Like Castro, Tram came to the big leagues at a very young age. He played 19 games for the Tigers at the age of 19 in ’77. The next season, as a twenty-year-old, he ...
Carving up Frenchy the clown. There’s enough for everybody!
The General Manager of your baseball team thinks Jeff Francoeur is worthy to don the Royal blue. The manager of your baseball team thinks he’s one of the best nine players at his disposal and dutifully fills out a lineup card with his name on it nearly every day.
I disagree.
Today I present to you the statistical case against Jeff Francoeur. (All numbers are through Sunday. After his 1-4 performance, it’s not like they ...
It’s not often that someone in another sport says “We ought to handle this issue like the NHL does.” Leave it to contrarian manager Dusty Baker of the Cincinnati Reds.
Baker, following a tiff between the Chicago Cubs and one of his pitchers, suggested that Major League Baseball use hockey’s time-honored tactics when it comes to settling disputes on the field: Let the players fight.
In this case, Matt Garza of the Cubs and Johnny Cueto of the Reds. From C. Trent Rosecrans of Cincinnati.com:
With several starters signed as major league depth struggling at Class AAA, the Nationals chose Karns to replace lefty Ross Detwiler, who is on the disabled list with a slight oblique strain, in the hope his ability can overcome inexperience. Karns, named this winter by Baseball America as the No. 5 prospect in the Nationals’ farm system, has a 4.60 ERA with 55 strikeouts over 45 innings this year.
An odd incident in the eighth inning of the Newark-Baltimore fray on Monday gave Mickey Corcoran a homer.
...Corcoran slashed a long hit to right center. Meyers [sic] in the outfield for Newark did not make an effore to go after the pellet, but instead started to run for the clubhouse, apparently thinking that it was the ninth inning. Gagnier ran after the ball from shortstop, but Corcoran easily made the circuit.
That’s so much more embarrassing than forgetting ...
Gausman makes his second start, Matt Harvey faces the Yankees in a BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF NEW YORK BASEBALL (or something like that, I have a flair for large amounts of exaggeration), and once again Colorado and Houston have the only NL game of the day. Wait… what? Since when? Oh, right.
So over the next four days, teams in opposite leagues will meet their natural rivals in four-game series — two games in each park.But let’s just say some rivalries are more natural than others. Following are the 15 “natural rivalries” being contested this week in order of how they fit the mold and the distance between the teams’ stadiums.
1. Chicago Cubs-Chicago White Sox, 9.9 miles [...]
15. Colorado Rockies-Houston Astros, 1,021.4 miles
The series over the years has been a lopsided one. The Yankees won five out of six games last year and entered Monday’s game holding a 54-36 overall advantage. The two teams were on divergent paths entering the series, as well. The Yankees, fielding a lineup below their normal standard, started the day holding share of first place in their division. The Mets, in fourth place and spiraling, have been desperate for wins.
The crowd at Citi Field was larger and more boisterous than for ...
Is Dustin Ackley the biggest Dustin bust since Dustydust?
Franklin, a 22-year-old switch hitter, was batting .324/.440/.472 with nine doubles, four homers, 20 RBI, 28 runs and seven stolen bases for Triple-A Tacoma. He now has 103 games in Triple-A after 79 in Double-A, so he should have enough seasoning to be ready for the bigs. He was drafted in the first round (27th overall) out of high school in 2009 by the Mariners and entered the season ranked as the 79th-best prospect in baseball by ...
Selection show is at noon today. Top 8 seeds and full bracket will be announced
Sixteen regional hosts are:
Cal State Fullerton
Florida State
Indiana
Kansas State
LSU
Louisville
Mississippi State
North Carolina
NC State
Oregon
Oregon State
South Carolina
UCLA
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Four team double-elimination this weekend, followed by eight super regionals which will be best-of-three between the sixteen survivors. CWS starts the weekend after next.
“Cueto should learn you don’t go after guys’ heads,” Garza said. “Don’t wake a sleeping dog and I think that’s kind of immature on his part and totally uncalled for. He’s lucky that retaliation isn’t in our vocabulary here.
“That’s kind of BS on his part. Just totally immature. If he has something to say about it, he knows where to find my locker and definitely I’ll find his.”
...“That’s totally uncalled for (when) you’re up ...
I once regarded the designated hitter as a hideous and cancerous blight that would inevitably lead to the collapse of civilization. I still do, but I can live with that. What I can no longer endure is the sight of gifted athletes victimized by a conspiracy to make them look like clowns.
Requiring pitchers to bat is like telling Bob Dylan to smile. It misuses their talent, lowers the quality of play, subjects them to pointless risk and probably causes irreparable loss of self-esteem.
With the first words out of his mouth following Sunday’s 8-3 Yankees loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, CC Sabathia wrote his own headline.
“I’m hurting the team,” the Yankees’ ace said after being racked up for a season-high seven earned runs, including a pair of two-run homers, in seven innings.
Sabathia didn’t sound frustrated or puzzled or angry.
He sounded dejected.
“I’m not helping the team out,” he said. “I just need to get better.”
Sabathia’s record of struggles at Tropicana Field are not ...
Instead of wondering I decided to reach out to Costas and gauge his potential interest in being commissioner. I also wanted to know Costas’ thoughts about possible changes he would make in baseball and what he’d recommend to increase the percentage of African-Americans playing in the Major Leagues.
When asked if he would consider replacing Bud Selig as commissioner Costas responded:
“I have no interest at in succeeding Selig. I have always ...
“False Gods will bring the devil the blues
Don’t slander me, don’t slander me”
42, directed and written by Brian Helgeland, takes a page of out the demonological playbook usually reserved for the Fox News contingent and creates a completely false set of events to “bolster” a story that needed no such artificial augmentation.
Helgeland, a lauded veteran talent whose involvement in two problematic neo-noir “masterpieces” (L.A. Confidential and Mystic River) has given him the kind of credibility ...
Well, at least it will keep his name alive come HOF voting time…
Despite Roger Clemens’ victory last year in his perjury case, a defamation lawsuit filed against the former Yankees ace more than four years ago in federal court in Brooklyn is threatening to keep alive allegations that he used steroids and cheated on his wife.
A magistrate judge in the civil case last week ordered lawyers for Clemens to turn over government documents to the plaintiff, former strength coach Brian McNamee, ...
As great as Scherzer has been, I don’t think he’s even the most worthy All-Star starter on his own team (Sanchez is ahead of him in ERA, WAR, FIP and quality starts). But I find his perspective on the “win” stat, which seems to come straight out of his mother’s basement, very refreshing:
“That’s the thing — 7-0’s a nice thing, but I don’t really hang my hat on that. If I was 0-7, and still pitching well, giving my team a chance to win, I’d still be proud of it,” he ...
Well Danielle says it’s the worst call that she’s ever seen.
Crew chief Wally Bell told a pool reporter after the game that it was Lawrie’s tossing of the batting gloves that prompted Bellino to run him, calling it poor baseball etiquette.
Lawrie’s older sister immediately went on her Twitter account (@DanielleLawrie5) to express her displeasure.
“The umps these days in @mlb can suck it… Some of the worst calls I have ever seen have been this 2013 season,” she tweeted, adding the hashtag ...
This is just a whole lot of fun. Kawasaki hit a walk-off two-run double off Baltimore’s struggling closer Jim Johnson—giving the Blue Jays a 6-5 win in a game they trailed 5-2 going into in the ninth—and delivered a great impromptu-yet-also-scripted post-game interview.
Kawasaki is called on camera for a post-game interview by teammate Mark DeRosa and proceeds to take the microphone and yell his name and country of origin. He then reads from prepared note cards ...
More than 500 major league baseball players served in the military during World War II, including stars like Ted Williams, Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio. But little attention has been paid to the two who died, Elmer Gedeon and Harry O’Neill, because their playing days were brief.
I’ve been wondering how much more of the putrid Cubs offense this front office could withstand watching. The Cubs President couldn’t hold back any longer. In Paul Sullivan’s latest, Theo Epstein publicly blasts his team for their lack of ability to get on base.
“There is certainly a snakebit quality to it with respect to our timing,” team President Theo Epstein said. “But to me the biggest factor is our inability to draw walks and to get ...
When the Florida Marlins decided to trade [Miguel] Cabrera in 2007, the Angels offered second baseman Howie Kendrick, catcher Jeff Mathis and one of two pitchers, Ervin Santana or the late Nick Adenhart. The Marlins wanted both pitchers; the Angels had second thoughts about including Kendrick; the talks deteriorated to the point where the two teams publicly clashed about whether they ever had agreed on a deal.
The Marlins traded Cabrera and pitcher Dontrelle Willis ...
As Szymborski tweeted yesterday…“Does Cincinnati chili contain large amts of lead?”
“He’s supposed to talk to Pete,” Baker said of Votto and other Reds. “Just like they need to talk to Johnny Bench. I wish Tony Perez was around more to teach our guys how to clutch hit. This cat was the best. He taught me and I was on the other team – what to look for, what to do, how to approach this and that. I wasn’t even around him that much. Davey Concepcion, (Perez) taught him, too. When Davey ...
Minor threat: Guilty of being a brave (covers up neck)
What Minor is on pace to do is post the best season any Braves starter has logged in quite some time. His ERA+ of 138 is equal to Tim Hudson’s mark in 2010, his best as a Brave, and was last bettered by Jair Jurrjens and Javier Vazquez in 2009. To find a Braves starter before that better than Minor’s pitched this season, you have to go back to John Smoltz, 2007.
Minor expressed gratitude that the Braves were so patient with him.
Here come Freese, he’s wearing a Cardinals shirt
Here comes Craig, y’know he’s sporting pure RBI plague
Androgenius.
“Absolutely, I always root for them,” McGwire said Saturday. “I’ve got a lot of time invested - great times - with those guys over there.
“It was a bit funny to watch them from the other side. But they’re really great hitters. Their offense is just stacked. It’s always been but ... it’s sort of different when you’re watching from the other side.
Umpire Jeff Nelson expressed regret on Saturday for making an incorrect call a night earlier, saying it was a play he’d never seen in 25 years.
“That play, your focus goes to the bag, and you watch the foot touch the bag and listen for the ball hitting the mitt. In this case, I ruled the ball was caught by the first baseman, and the ball was actually caught by the pitcher,” Nelson told a pool reporter before Saturday’s game between the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. “The pitcher kind of ...
