There are 30 teams in MLB, 25 players per team, for 750 roster spots total. We put out a book with nearly 1,600 players in it. You’d think we’d be able to cover those 750 roster spots, but no, every year MLB teams manage to find players we didn’t cover and give them uniforms Opening…
As I explained last week, we asked the attendees at each Pizza Feed to predict the results of the divisional races this year, along with the World Series winner, major award winners, managerial firings, etc. This week, we’ll take a look at the American League divisional races. For each division, the average rank of each…
There’s a new meta-argument I’ve been seeing a lot in my e-mail lately: if all franchises were run by Billy Beane, or those of his ilk, wouldn’t market inequities resurface and make success solely about revenue? The case is made with a resigned air, almost to suggest that maybe it’s best if we give up pushing the idea that smart, low-revenue franchises can hold their cards close and still compete with mega-funded teams like the Dodgers. If you look at what the future of enlightened baseball might hold, though, you’ll see it’s a pretty cool place.
There’s a new meta-argument I’ve been seeing a lot in my e-mail lately: if all franchises were run by Billy Beane, or those of his ilk, wouldn’t market inequities resurface and make success solely about revenue? The case is made with a resigned air, almost to suggest that maybe it’s best if we give up…
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…
I can think of only one good thing about Ken Griffey Jr.’s injury: it’s a legend in the making, right up there with the Curse of the Bambino, and it reinforces why baseball is the greatest game on earth.
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…
Barring unforeseen circumstances, this will be the last edition of "Rany on the Royals" for a while. It’s not that I no longer enjoy writing about the Royals, because I do. It’s not even that I’m fed up with the futility of covering a team that seems utterly hopeless, because as cynical as some of…
I can think of only one good thing about Ken Griffey Jr.‘s injury: it’s a legend in the making, right up there with the Curse of the Bambino, and it reinforces why baseball is the greatest game on earth. Before we proceed further, know that I take no joy in watching an All-Century Team player’s…
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.