Before the din of their World Championship celebration died down last year, Chris Chambliss was fired from his job as the hitting coach for the New York Yankees. He resurfaced this spring as manager of Florida’s Triple-A team, the Calgary Cannons. Chambliss is probably the most qualified managerial candidate in baseball today, but has yet…
Tom Wilson has been one of the best-hitting catchers in minor-league baseball for a number of years, offering the tasty combination of patience and power. However, all that has gotten him is two days of major-league service time, during which he didn’t have an at-bat. Now 30 years old, Wilson is with his fifth organization,…
Following the 1995 season, Alan Benes was ranked by Baseball America as the top pitching prospect in the game. He had a solid rookie season for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1996 and continued his development into one of the best young pitchers in the majors in 1997. Benes suffered a torn rotator cuff in…
Taking a cue from Chris Kahrl’s latest NL Central Notebook, what should teams in the AL West be doing as the season winds down? Anaheim Angels Mike Scioscia’s troops have had a surprising run, but still find themselves six games back in the division with two teams to climb over and five-and-a-half games behind in…
If Bill James were to assemble a Ken Phelps All-Star Team in the Year 2000, there is a good chance that Billy McMillon would be named as captain of the squad. Despite having the ability to help most major-league teams, McMillon has languished in Triple-A for the better part of the last five seasons. On…
Ten days remain until the switch is turned off on baseball’s mid-season blue light special and, mathematically, any of the teams outside the Lone Star State could be in first place at the end of July. Since all of the clubs still harbor thoughts of donning their uniforms in October, let’s look at what each…
Running with the Pack For better or worse, "parity" has been a buzzword in the NFL for the last decade or so. It’s the result of league rules that reward poor performance with a creampuff schedule that enables perennial sad sacks to sign Arena League quarterbacks and win the Super Bowl. Baseball’s economic disparities and…
Ryan Anderson was the Seattle Mariners’ first-round pick in the June 1997 amateur draft out of Divine Child High School in Dearborn, Michigan. At 6’11 3/4", the hard-throwing southpaw cuts a figure on the mound unlike any seen before. Anderson’s first two professional seasons included a mix of dominant stretches and bouts with inconsistency. However,…
Anaheim Angels You don’t need to look any further than the top of the Angels’ lineup to find one of the main reasons for the team’s unexpectedly good start, as Darin Erstad (.492/.548/.738) is reestablishing himself as one of the toughest outs in the game. Less than a month ago, some pundits were questioning his…
Roy White has been the Triple-A batting coach for the Oakland Athletics since 1999. He came over from the New York Yankees, where he was a scout, international scout and the organizational outfield coach. He played 15 seasons in the majors, all with the Yankees from 1965 through 1979, never getting much recognition despite being…
Although most major teams head to spring training with enough players to fill two 25-man rosters, if all goes according to Hoyle, the winnowing of players the following six weeks is mainly a formality. This is as it should be, since personnel decisions shouldn’t be based on 45 at-bats or 15 innings pitched. Inevitably, however,…
Grapefruit and Cactus League games are just starting, a time when it’s tough to identify many of the players without a program, especially those with numbers higher than Tiger Woods’s scoring average. In hockey those numbers are often worn by the likes of Jaromir Jagr or Eric Lindros, but in baseball, they’re given to players…
Following the lead of the most recent AL East Notebook, let’s take a closer look at some prospects in winter ball from the Junior Circuit’s Western Division, focusing mainly on those who added impressive performances to their resumes. Anaheim Angels The Angels had the fewest winter ball participants of any team in the division. The…
Unless you’re the Anaheim Angels–who seem to be taking the term "offseason" literally–the winter has been a busy one for the American League West. New GM Pat Gillick hasn’t been shy about spending the Mariners’ increased budget, the Rangers have revamped their team via a blockbuster trade and free agency and, surprisingly, the Athletics have…
Anaheim Angels Last Friday’s "mutually agreed upon resignation" of Terry Collins certainly won’t be the final act in the calamitous drama unfolding thirty minutes southeast of Hollywood. General Manager Bill Bavasi and President Tony Tavares will also likely be exiting stage right after the season. Even the parent Disney Corporation is seeking to bail out,…
Death of a Race Although the Texas Rangers were up by five games in the AL West entering the All-Star break, there was only a 6 1/2-game spread from top to bottom in the division. All three teams entertained dreams of catching the Rangers, but Texas came out of the break hotter than the Astroturf…