I have a nasty spring cold, my allergies are acting up, I broke my glasses, and I’m in the process of moving. I’m still probably feeling better than Brad Fullmer, but that doesn’t do much for me. For those of you east of the Rockies who are gainfully employed, that’s a reference to last night’s…
Last day we’ll deal with this, I promise. One thing I probably should have included in yesterday’s column was a brief explanation of how park factors are calculated. A lot of the mail I received attempted to tie Veterans Stadium’s high walk park factor to the composition of the Phillies’ staff. While that seems to…
I returned from a road trip up the California coast to what I will gently call a flood of, um, "constructively critical" e-mail from Yankee fans, responding to last Thursday’s piece for ESPN.com. Buried amidst the profanity, though, was some good response to the Daily Prospectus of the same day, which dealt with Curt Schilling‘s…
Back in March, I did a column on the Arizona Diamondbacks that contained the following sentence: "The staff is the D’backs strength, but other than Randy Johnson, there’s no one here who’s a good bet for 200 innings of league-average ball." That generated a lot of reader mail, some of which sung the praises of…
One of my best friends, Derek Jacques, is a very good pool player. It was from Derek that I learned the term "cripple stick," which is a nickname for the bridge, a piece of equipment used to extend reach on certain shots. Writers have their own cripple sticks, one of which is the use of…
2000 American League BB/9 K/9 K/BB R/9 3.74 6.27 1.68 5.34 April 2000, American League BB/9 K/9 K/BB R/9 3.79 6.32 1.67 5.55 April 2001, American League BB/9 K/9 K/BB R/9 3.36 6.76 2.01 5.05 2000 National League BB/9 K/9 K/BB R/9 3.84 6.75 1.76 5.07 April 2000, National League BB/9 K/9 K/BB R/9 4.09…
AL Rookies Baseball Prospectus 2001 contains Wilton projections for more than 800 hitters. Now that the season is underway, let’s take a look at Wilton’s book projections for the rookie position players who made their NL teams’ rosters. Later this week at BP.com, we’ll have a look at all the players who missed the cut…
It’s Monday, everyone’s probably a bit grumpy and there are no baseball games being televised in my area today. So to counter that, let’s look at some of the positive things I saw in the season’s first week. The one that jumps out at me is Larry Rothschild’s use of Steve Cox in the #2…
By far, the most common question showing up in my mailbox this week–during those periods when I’ve actually had access to my e-mail, thank you, Time Warner–concerns Red Sox third baseman Shea Hillenbrand. Hillenbrand, who did not make the cut for Baseball Prospectus 2001, did make the Sox roster thanks to a .423 batting average…
Two days into the Alex Rodriguez era in Texas, and already some people have gone completely insane. In two games, Rodriguez is 3-for-8, all singles, with no walks and four strikeouts. He’s stolen a base and made an error, and had an embarrassing moment or two in Sunday’s game in Puerto Rico. One way to…
Baseball Prospectus 2001 contains Wilton projections for more than 800 hitters. Last week at ESPN.com, we took a look at what Wilton projected for the major categories, noting that the system projects a Triple Crown for Alex Rodriguez and an RBI record for Todd Helton. Now that Opening Day rosters have been set, let’s take…
Our long national nightmare is over. What a difference a year makes, particularly if you’re Mike Hampton. Kicking off the 2000 season in Tokyo with the Mets, Hampton was wilder than Drew Barrymore at 12, walking seven hitters, falling behind a bunch more and barely pitching into the sixth inning. Cut to yesterday, and Hampton…
The season has started! The season has started! OK, I’m a complete geek, but how can you help but be excited if you’re a baseball nut? Yesterday’s opener was the appetizer, and today brings about a half-schedule of games (including seven on TV in my area). Without further ado, here are my NL predictions. Unlike…
Sorry about yesterday, folks: technical difficulties kept this from getting up. Look for my NL predictions Saturday. The American League looks to be a little less interesting than the NL this year. The gap between the league’s best teams and the next tier down is fairly significant, and there are more AL teams with no…
Last year around this time, we introduced an award in honor of a player whose aggressiveness at the plate has become legendary. And while it was a rough year for Gary DiSarcina otherwise, the founding of the DiSar Award was a rousing success. Not much comfort to the man who missed most of the season…
The Red Sox got the news yesterday they’d been trying to avoid for all of March: Nomar Garciaparra is going to need surgery and will be out for at least two months, and for as many as four. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this loss. For the most part, teams and the media…