Lots of stuff… Barry Bonds choked again last night, failing to hit a home run on any of the three strikes he saw in five plate appearances. At the rate he’s going, 180 walks is within reach, as is a .520 OBP. Anyone looking to criticize Bonds for his plate discipline should note that he…
Tuesday’s column over on ESPN.com on the Favorite Toy produced quite a reader response about omitted players, such as this note: I enjoyed your ESPN column today–it is fun to speculate about these things. One thing I noticed was the absence of the player who, prior to 2000, usually led all of these discussions–Ken Griffey….
The Braves did it again last night, wasting a good start by Greg Maddux and losing 2-1 to the Phillies, shortening their lead in the NL East to one game. This team’s inability to score against anyone not named Armando Benitez has gotten ridiculous, and may cost them a spot in the postseason, their first…
A few weeks back, a column on the legality of capping draft salaries generated plenty of email from the JDs in the audience, including an interesting exchange with Greg G., who responded thus to a question about how the union could bargain away the rights of players who have yet to join: It’s a neat…
In one forum or another, I’ve chimed in on three of the four biggest postseason awards. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about AL MVP yet, so I figured I’d take a look today. While there are still six days left in the AL season, it’s fair to say that not much about the…
This would have been the day after the end of the regular season, the dead day between the pennant races and the opening day of the Division Series. September 11 changed that schedule, leaving us with one more week of baseball before the playoffs begin. Of course, the American League is done. With the Indians…
One of the persistent themes in our annual book is the idea of proper use of players. Most players who we criticize aren’t bad players at all; there are very few bad baseball players that have ever made it to the high minors, much less the majors. For example, when we chide Brian L. Hunter…
PROGRESSION "I think the decisions we made to enhance this ballpark were good ones. It’s going to make this ballpark stand the test of time. We did some things we probably didn’t have to do. That’s money we’re not going to have. Next year, I know we’re not going to have cost overruns." —Kevin McClatchy,…
There’s an unfortunate but natural tendency to ascribe to players the qualities they exhibit on the field. Great players are often treated as great people, even if they aren’t. There’s a quality of redemption-through-performance that we see most obviously in players accused of big things, like murder. The reverse is also true: while some of…
This week’s question comes from N.J., who writes: I’m going to keep writing until you answer or persuade me this is a stupid question… I’d like to see a metric that evaluates what a player has actually contributed toward winning, not just how good the player is. For example, Sammy Sosa has been a terrific…
About two months ago, there was a ton of focus on transactions. Which players would be going where to help what teams, and what would they bring in return? The trade deadline is always rife with speculation, and frankly, it’s a fun pastime. But the thing I try to remember is that of all the…
The specter of contraction has reared its ugly head again. The very public tiff between Jerry McMorris, principal owner of the Colorado Rockies, and the Montreal Expos, has brought the subject back into the public debate. For those who missed it, McMorris proposed that last weekend’s series between the Rockies and Expos be moved to…
Part One Part Two (Introduced by Bill James in 1987, the Ken Phelps All-Star Team is a way of acknowledging players who, based on their performance in the minor leagues, deserve a chance to play in the majors, but who have not received the opportunity. In Part Two of his three-part series, Jeff Bower looks…
The dream died this weekend. The Twins, with one last chance to make a run in the AL Central, dropped two of three games to the Indians, making their tragic number six and basically ending the divisional race. The Twins scored just four runs in their two losses, continuing an offensive slide that is the…
PITCHING THROUGH PAIN "The way things were going, it was feeling better before the Pittsburgh incident, I thought that I was on the right track and would be able to make it. But, you know, whatever happened then, since I’ve been back the second time. it has not been great the whole time. It’s gotten…