It happens every year: some team sprints out of the gate like Ban Johnson on a ‘roid rage, and the media hordes trample one another trying to grab hold of the bandwagon before Tax Day. When it’s a team like the Cardinals, who were already a trendy pick to make the playoffs before the season…
It’s tough for me to believe that there will be a runaway winner in the division this year. The Diamondbacks, so good last season, still feature an old offense that may not play up to last year’s standards. The Dodgers, despite quite a bit of individual talent, sport the worst pitching staff I’ve seen in…
Consistent Relief John Wetteland‘s name has been dropped from discussions of the game’s best closers, but his consistency in the most capricious role in baseball is still the standard for the new generation of relief aces. Wetteland has amassed 25 or more saves for eight straight seasons, and his low season of 25 saves came…
Scary. That’s the only word to describe the imaginations of the Baseball Prospectus readership. When we announced Big Exciting Contest #3, "Pick the player you will not have on your fantasy team," we certainly had no idea we’d see the kind of responses we did. So, a couple rounds of therapy and some shock treatment…
Over the past few days, we’ve been treated to the annual sight of watching baseball players play the game dressed like skiers, as a cold snap ripped through cities like Cincinnati, Chicago and Milwaukee. I was born and raised in the Northeast, and while my playing career ended a long time ago, I can still…
The Red Sox have started the season slowly, squeezing a four-game losing streak between two Pedro Martinez starts. I’ve seen both games, and I’m pretty much convinced that he’s the dominant player–not just pitcher, but player–in the game today, and I encourage anyone with the opportunity to see him perform in person to do so….
Ray Ratto has been one of the finest sports writers in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years, first with the San Francisco Chronicle and more recently with the Examiner. The rest of the country got their first taste of Ray’s work in the late, lamented National. In addition to his local work, Ratto…
OPENING DAY, TAKE TWO “I think today was huge. It’s a really big deal for me.” — Gabe Kapler, Rangers outfielder, on hitting a pair of home runs “It’s not a sign. It’s just the first game. We’ve got a lot of games left.” — Tony Muser, Royals manager, on losing a late lead and…
Among the biggest stories in baseball every spring is the emergence of a new crop of phenoms, those great talents that take the relaxed atmosphere of spring training by storm before they take their first legal drink–or their first swing in Double-A. This year, the name on everyone’s lips depended on the humidity: in arid…
in just three days, nine players have had two-homer games. There’s no one completely ridiculous performance on the list, and I’d like to think the big days by Tony Batista and Shannon Stewart herald the arrival of the Blue Jays as a force in the AL East. the Martinez brothers are struggling, combining to allow…
Late in 1999, we asked our readers to give us their picks for baseball’s Team of the 1990s. More than 1,000 people voted in the poll, held over three months, and the results have been tabulated. The outfielders and designated hitter for the Team of the 1990s are: Left Field Very little surprise here, as…
Last Friday, the Red Sox announced that right-hander Juan Pena would miss the 2000 season with a torn medial collateral ligament in his right elbow. Pena will undergo Tommy John surgery and attempt to resume his career in 2001. According to the team, the tear was caused when Pena took a line drive off his…
The Best Young Offense Ever? Despite their 64-97 record last season, the Kansas City Royals set a franchise record with 856 runs, and did so almost entirely with youngsters. Mike Sweeney, who turned 26 last July, was the senior member of a group that included Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, Rookie of the Year Carlos Beltran,…
There was a time when conservatism produced solid results in fantasy auctions. Hang back, let people spend themselves silly on the stars, then scoop up the middle guys at reasonable or even bargain prices. Judging by the LABR and ToutWars auctions last month, those days are gone. I went into the American League ToutWars auction…
The season so nice, they opened it twice…. The biggest and best news of the day came out of Atlanta, where Andres Galarraga completed his comeback from cancer by popping a tie-breaking home run to help the Braves beat the Rockies, 2-0. The Big Cat is rapidly becoming one of my favorite players, in part…