Back in April–you remember April, don’t you?–you couldn’t click your mouse without reading about how baseball had simply become slow-pitch softball with warmer, more expensive beer. Scoring was up, ERAs were up, home runs were up and interns were being run ragged chasing the latest, greatest freak stat to prove that the game had gone…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Signed LHP Bryan Ward and assigned him to Edmonton; claimed 2B-R David Eckstein off of waivers from the Red Sox. [8/16] Talk about bargain shopping, because the Angels just nabbed two guys who can play. Neither one will ever star, not unless you’re a Lance Blankenship groupie or a geriatric member of the…
A few weeks back in a column I wrote reviewing the first half, I made the claim that Kirk Rueter could be expected to decline from his good first half. I made this prediction based on his poor strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratios. Rueter, of course, has pitched even better in the second half. In…
The subjects of revenue sharing and fixing the alleged performance disparity between "large-market" and "small-market" teams won’t go away. This despite the stellar performance of the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s, teams once firmly entrenched in the "small-market" camp. Indeed, to listen to WEEI (the great sports-talk radio station in Boston), one…
Hmmm…now what other team can I say nice things about, sending them into an ugly tailspin? OK, so maybe there were some good reasons to ignore the Padres, who have scored two runs since Sunday in losing a pair of games to the Braves. The last two nights’ starters–Jay Witasick and Woody Williams–have shown both…
Catching The Damn Ball Where are Vizquel and Ordonez on your list of top shortstops? And 20-30 runs possible difference from one position is high, isn’t it? Can the range be that large? –ZR Well, you can figure out the possible range of effects within a reasonable bound pretty quickly. Range Factor (RF) is a…
ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS Placed RHP Johnny Ruffin on the 15-day DL (groin); recalled OF-L David Dellucci from Tucson. [8/13] David Dellucci still doesn’t appear to have recovered from his wrist problems, so while it’s a good move for the Snakes to get back down to 11 pitchers, I’m not happy with either rationale that’s been offered….
RETURN TRIP "It’s value for value. Their tools are very similar. The guy we got in return is a little older. But he’s got less left on his contract. So it’s a good tradeoff." — Ed Wade, Phillies GM, on Rob Ducey, traded away before the end of one homestand and traded for in time…
Maybe it’s an Adam Eaton effect, maybe it’s my unnatural affection for Ruben Rivera or maybe it’s just that I’ll be in the city next weekend, but I would really like to know why no one, anywhere, considers the San Diego Padres a contender. The Padres are 57-61, in last place in the National League…
It’s in the nature of a project like Baseball Prospectus to have some extremely good insights and some yakkers that we’d rather forget. One of my esteemed co-authors once came up with a great argument that Bryce Florie could be the best pitcher in the American League in the near future, and I thought that…
Beginning today, Transaction Analysis moves to a three-day-a-week schedule. Look for Chris Kahrl’s wit and wisdom Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at Baseball Prospectus. ANAHEIM ANGELS Activated LHP Kent Mercker from the DL; optioned OF/1B-R Chris Hatcher to Edmonton; placed RHP Mike Fyhrie on the 15-day DL (elbow inflammation). [8/11] Purchased the contract of RHP Eric…
Wednesday’s column on the Pedro Martinez/Ramon Ortiz duel speculated on the game’s possible place on a list of 2000’s top combined Game Scores, since the two pitchers had combined to post a 160. Game Scores are a simple measure of the quality of a start, first published in the 1988 Baseball Abstract and calculated as…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Released RHP Ken Hill; activated LHP Jarrod Washburn from the DL; optioned RHP Brian Cooper to Edmonton; recalled RHP Ramon Ortiz from Edmonton; outrighted OF-R Edgard Clemente to Edmonton; purchased the contract of IF-R Keith Johnson from Edmonton. [8/7] Purchased the contract of 1B/OF-R Chris Hatcher from Edmonton; returned LHP Jarrod Washburn to…
Everybody’s favorite whipping-boy/wonder-agent, Scott Boras, found himself in the news a few times in the past week. Boras is a lightning rod for criticism for no reason other than that he’s damn good at what he does. An agent is supposed to represent the interests of his client; that’s all. The real or threatened consequences…
Rick Ankiel is living up to the hype. With his performance Monday night, he lowered his ERA to an impressive 4.01 and, more impressively, has now struck out 130 batters in just 119 innings pitched. To put that in perspective, 78 pitchers in history have struck out at least a man an inning while qualifying…