I saw very little baseball over the weekend, taking off early Friday with my wife to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. Even though it was only a few days, I feel like I missed a lot. I guess that’s one of the great things about baseball: so much happens every single day. Anyway, I’m still…
The Yankees and Red Sox play a four-game wraparound series this weekend, ending with the traditional 11 a.m. start on Patriot’s Day. The teams are nominally the contenders in the American League East, but as Chris Kahrl put it a few weeks ago, the AL East is really the Yankees, and the two pairs behind them: the Sox and Blue Jays, and the the Orioles and Devil Rays.
The Yankees and Red Sox play a four-game wraparound series this weekend, ending with the traditional 11 a.m. start on Patriot’s Day. The teams are nominally the contenders in the American League East, but as Chris Kahrl put it a few weeks ago, the AL East is really the Yankees, and the two pairs behind…
There are a couple of stretches during the year when doing this column can be a bit difficult. One of them is right now. We’re about ten days into the season, which is too late to be making any predictions about how things are going to go–although I do wish Dave Pease hadn’t nixed my line about Eli Marrero’s shot to hit .400–and too early to draw conclusions about what we’ve seen so far. Oh, we can throw some numbers out, and I stand by what I said the other day about the strike zone, but for the most part, the first couple weeks of the season are about watching and waiting.
There are a couple of stretches during the year when doing this column can be a bit difficult. One of them is right now. We’re about ten days into the season, which is too late to be making any predictions about how things are going to go–although I do wish Dave Pease hadn’t nixed my…
One of the points we’ve been pounding for years is the concept of sunk costs. In baseball, it refers to the amount of a guaranteed contract yet to be paid. The money is committed, and must be paid to a player regardless of whether he’s playing or not.
One of the points we’ve been pounding for years is the concept of sunk costs. In baseball, it refers to the amount of a guaranteed contract yet to be paid. The money is committed, and must be paid to a player regardless of whether he’s playing or not. Throughout the free-agent era, teams got themselves…
Take this with a grain of salt, but it certainly appears to me that the changes to the strike zone that we saw last year have disappeared. I watched a ridiculous amount of baseball in the first week of the season, and I routinely saw the pitch between the belt and the letters–a strike by rule–called a ball.
Take this with a grain of salt, but it certainly appears to me that the changes to the strike zone that we saw last year have disappeared. I watched a ridiculous amount of baseball in the first week of the season, and I routinely saw the pitch between the belt and the letters–a strike by…
Over the past three seasons, the National League West has been a royal pain to project. The teams with the best individual players have had incomplete lineups and rosters; the teams with the best pitching have had lousy offenses; the teams spending the most money have put on the worst performances.
Over the past three seasons, the National League West has been a royal pain to project. The teams with the best individual players have had incomplete lineups and rosters; the teams with the best pitching have had lousy offenses; the teams spending the most money have put on the worst performances. In that time, the…
I don’t mean to defend the actions of certain fans, which went well past the rules of decorum, but the emotion displayed by those people struck me as a large one-finger salute to those who want to say that the Montreal Expos can be eliminated and no one will care. Many people will care; perhaps not enough to make this destroyed franchise viable again, but certainly enough to make the point that the Expos didn’t die: they were killed by an ownership group content to collect welfare rather than compete.
You had to like the scene in Montreal last night, where 34,000 people showed up to express their displeasure with the visiting Florida Marlins. The Marlins, of course, were what Jeffrey Loria upgraded to after selling the Expos to Major League Baseball. I don’t mean to defend the actions of certain fans, which went well…
The AL kicks off its 102nd season tonight in Anaheim, where the Angels host the Cleveland Indians in a battle of two teams whose seasons will end on September 29. Who will play beyond that point?
The AL kicks off its 102nd season tonight in Anaheim, where the Angels host the Cleveland Indians in a battle of two teams whose seasons will end on September 29. Who will play beyond that point? AL East New York Yankees Boston Red Sox Toronto Blue Jays Tampa Bay Devil Rays Baltimore Orioles This is…
Yes, it’s that time of year, when the opportunity to be oh, so very wrong about the upcoming baseball season presents itself.
Predictions are part of this gig, so here’s my take on what we’ll see in the next six months in the National League. Take these with a grain of salt, though. For all we do know about these teams, it’s what we don’t see coming–an Albert Pujols, a Bret Boone, a Dr. James Andrews–that makes all the difference.