Nine teams in MLB history have had five pitchers make 30 or more starts in a season. Two of them faced each other in the 2012 NLDS. How have previous teams that accomplished this feat fared the previous and following seasons?

Good question. Let's look.

You may know Barry Bonds by the number 762. Something to do with home runs.

While the people who decide such things try to make sense of his legacy, here's another number: 688. That's how many intentional walks Bonds drew in his career.

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Everyone starts somewhere and ends up somewhere else. This is what my wife tells me when I ask her for an angle. “Place matters,” she says.

It is Saturday in January, my wife's birthday. Like Barry Zito going from high school to college, we start in San Diego and end up in Santa Barbara. We will not continue north to the Bay Area because our train does not go that far.

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Hall of Fame. Made you look!

One of the many things that makes baseball great is that it isn't politics. Well, usually. But voting always brings out the best in people. It's when they're at their most logical, exercising reason while avoiding rhetoric and personal attacks.

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Neftali Feliz enjoyed early big-league success as a reliever, then was moved into the rotation and got hurt. In a recent chat, reader AJ wondered what might become of Feliz, who had Tommy John surgery last August and is on-target for a return in the second half of 2013. My answer waffled, but I mentioned the risk of making such a conversion.

In the chat, I cited Byung-Hyun Kim as a cautionary tale. Have there been others?

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When the Diamondbacks traded right-hander Trevor Bauer and change in a three-way trade with the Reds and Indians for Didi Gregorius and other change last week, it raised an interesting question: Dude, seriously?

Bauer, taken with the third pick overall in 2011, was being swapped for an athletic shortstop who, according to BP's Mark Anderson, “may be able to hit only at the bottom of the order, leaving some scouts to project him as a second-division starter and possibly only a utility player.” Acknowledging that Gregorius made a favorable impression in the Arizona Fall League, it's easy to see why some folks are scratching their heads and/or grabbing their pitchforks.

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The Padres have been huge players so far this offseason, acquiring Brandon Kloess, A.J. Kirby-Jones, Tyson Ross, and Wilfredo Boscan in trades, and signing free agents Travis Buck and Jason Marquis. This has the potential to upset the balance of power in the National League West.

Such are the problems when a new ownership group comes in and starts flinging money like there's an endless supply of the green stuff. Drop enough Lincolns and other teams reflexively recoil in fear. It is impossible to deny the intimidation factor that accompanies such brash spending. Opponents feel deflated and stop trying to compete. This is great for the Padres, but think of the poor Dodgers and Giants to the north. What will become of them?

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On September 7, 2010, in the second inning of a game between the Reds and the Rockies, Eric Young Jr. stole second base. The pitcher was Johnny Cueto, who hasn't allowed a steal of second in 61 starts since then.

Cueto possesses one of baseball's best pickoff moves (he caught Young off second base in the fourth inning of the same game), and runners are 2-for-15 against him over the past two years: On June 14, 2011, Dodgers shortstop Dee Gordon swiped third base against Cueto. On July 3, 2012, Dodgers third baseman Luis Cruz stole home.

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Among the many fascinating things that happened to the Rockies in 2012 is the fact that Jeff Francis led the pitching staff in innings pitched. Francis didn't sign with Colorado until June 8, a few days after the Reds released him from their Triple-A club. He made his first start for the Rockies on June 9 and surrendered eight runs in 3 1/3 innings.

Francis pitched better after that, although his performance was hardly cause for excitement. He made his starts and logged as many innings as the Rockies’ strict pitch count would allow. He ended up with 113 innings, becoming the only man on the staff to break triple digits. Does that seem unusual? Well, it is.

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Last year, the Oakland A's were expected to go nowhere fast. We here at Baseball Prospectus had them finishing last in an American League West that figured to be dominated by the big-spending Angels and Rangers. Oakland broke the script and won 94 games, pushing past the heavily favored Rangers in the season's final week with a three-game sweep. After that last 12-5 victory on October 3, the A's took sole possession of first place in the division for the first and only time all year.

After stumbling to a 22-29 start through May, the A's got serious, going a major-league-best 72-39 the rest of the way. Even still, on the heels of a 9-7 loss at Texas on September 27, they trailed the Rangers by four games with six games left on the schedule. Then the A's won all of those games and shocked the baseball world.

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Continued from Part 1.

Saturday, November 3
The morning begins with a meeting of the SABR Flame Delhi Chapter. Chapter president and AFL Conference coordinator Rodney Johnson offers a few introductory words before turning things over to Bernie Pleskoff, who tells us what to expect in tonight's Rising Stars Game and generously answers our questions about players we may have seen (including mine about Rangers shortstop Luis Sardinas, who will not be playing but who impressed me on Friday).

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I try to visit the Arizona Fall League at least once every year. I don't always succeed, but it's a treat when I do. On my first trip to the desert, in 2001, I saw such future big-leaguers as Hank Blalock and Michael Cuddyer. In the 2004 championship game, it was Ryan Howard and Huston Street (who went on to be named NL and AL Rookie of the Year in 2005). The next November I convinced myself that Lastings Milledge would be a star. My last visit, in 2010, featured Jason Kipnis.

There were many other players that I didn't see or don't remember seeing. The point is that, much like spring training, the AFL provides an opportunity to watch players that most baseball fans haven't heard of yet but likely will in a few years (or sooner). For some people, this is cool in itself, in an “I saw them before they signed with Geffen” kind of way. For others, it's fun to watch a Cuddyer or a Howard on a larger stage now and be transported back in time, to memories accumulated in a given autumn.

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