Two months is a brief piece of a baseball season to be basing sweeping pronouncements on, yet I’ll step in front of the gale and do it. One of the strangest things I noted in setting this up, looking for the ten best teams, is how exactly ten teams have seperated themselves from the general…
Top Ten Teams 1. Atlanta Braves: All this, without particularly sterling performances from Andruw Jones or John Smoltz. Wow. 2. New York Yankees: Depth, walks, power, a nasty bullpen, and rotation. This is what the Baltimore Orioles had in mind — they just did it with old, bad players. 3. Houston Astros: Rotation depth is…
Top Ten Teams 1. NY Yankees: they’re strong enough to survive injuries almost anywhere in the lineup or on the pitching staff and still not suffer a noticeable dropoff. 2. Atlanta: the key hitters are all young and can get better (I don’t consider the Big Cat key, whatever the last two months say), while…
Top Ten Teams: 1. Yanquis. I thought they’d be good. They’ve been significantly better than I expected. 2. Braves. Always a great team, they’re getting good seasons from their Colorado imports. Whowouldathunk? 3. Padres. Everything’s coming together for this team. Except Joey Hamilton. 4. Astros. Again very solid, and getting some unexpected pitching help. 5….
Basically for little more than grins, we polled ourselves to see who we thought ranked where in various categories: the top ten teams in MLB, the three most disappointing teams, MVPs, Cy Young Awards, Rookies of the Year, and Managers of the Year. You’ll find links to each of our ballots below, but here are…
Top Ten Teams 1. Yankees: First in majors in runs per game, first in AL in fewest runs allowed. 2. Braves: I still don’t believe in Galarraga, though. 3. Astros: Moises Alou? 4. Rangers: Proof that pitching isn’t 75% of the game. 5. Indians: Don’t blame them for the crappiness of the rest of the…
Top Ten Teams 1. NY Yankees: Incredibly deep team which can afford to lose almost anybody because their talent base. They will run away with the division. 2. Atlanta Braves – Same old story. What will we tell our grandchildren about this starting staff? 3. San Diego Padres – Last year the pitching staff pitched…
Top 10 Teams 1. New York Yankees — By far the best record in baseball, and they’re doing it with worse-than-expected starting pitching. If Cone and Pettitte get going, the sky’s the limit. 2. Atlanta Braves — They’re getting a lot more offense than expected from the ex-Rockies, but better production from Jones (Andruw) and…
BALTIMORE ORIOLES Purchased the contract of LHP Radhames Dykhoff from Bowie (AA); sent RHP Bobby Munoz outright to Rochester. [6/5] Activated RHP Mike Mussina from the DL; placed RHP Terry Mathews on the 15-day DL, retroactive to 6/2 (shoulder stiffness); placed OF Jeffrey Hammonds on the 15-day DL, retroactive to 6/3 (back spasms); purchased the…
THE DRAFT "We got the guy we wanted and that doesn’t happen often enough." — Brad Sloan, Padres scouting director "The thing you’ve got to remember is [J.D. Drew] has a very high ceiling. This guy, I think, is arguably the best player in this draft and may have been the best player in the…
Rany takes the easy ones; we want to cover a couple of interesting guys you may not have heard as much about: Adam Riggs, a longtime second baseman in the Dodger chain with a little pop, and Octavio Dotel, one of many pitching prospects around the minors who could be great, or could be injured…
After 60 games last season, the San Francisco Giants were 34-26 and in the midst of a surprising season that saw the team win the NL West despite allowing more runs than they scored. Many of us attributed their success to nothing more than luck, and we assumed the team would collapse towards the center…