In The Baseball Book 1992, Bill James condensed each team into a box. Each box comprised a summary of the team’s 1991 season, a general prognosis for 1992, a look at the teams’ best prospects and a bunch of other nuggets, most of them for fun. For each team, though, he designated one player as…
I wondered if any of you had any opinion on Scott Boras’s assertions that Alex Rodriguez will hit 778 HR. Rob Neyer pooh-poohed the idea in his column, but I don’t think it sounds unreasonable at all in today’s climate. –DS Well, as I’m sure you know by now, Rob has explained his take on…
Previous articles in this series: Rotation of the Decade MVP of the Decade Outfield of the Decade Infield of the Decade Fittingly, we end our yearlong Team of The Decade extended coverage with your choices for the bullpen. Winning more than double the points of the second place finisher, the Reliever of the Decade is…
Revisiting baseball predictions is a tricky prospect. If the predictions are based on a specific methodology, then revisiting them is necessary: doing so helps to modify and improve the methodology. Otherwise, the pundit is just whistling in the dark. Most baseball predictions, of course, aren’t that systematic in their origin. A writer looks at rosters…
HACKING MASS | Team-by-Team Results | 2000 Rosters | Results By Position It’s that time of year again: the leaves are turning, the chill of autumn is in the air, and the stiffest of the stiff are being recognized for a job vigorously done. Here are the results of this year’s HACKING MASS extravaganza. Roundup…
The internet has decided this year’s IBA Players of the Year.
I first became really interested in Andujar Cedeno‘s career when I opened the paper one morning in December of 1994 and saw the Padres and the Astros had swapped rosters. Sure, Steve Finley and Ken Caminiti were the big names coming to town, and I was glad I would no longer have to watch Derek…
The Internet has decided this year’s Pitchers of the Year.
American League Perhaps not everyone considers him a rookie, but 32-year-old Kazuhiro Sasaki convinced enough voters to win the 2000 IBA Rookie of the Year award in the American League. The voting pattern indicates that Sasaki’s age and experience in the Japanese Leagues may have been a factor. He appeared on 57 fewer ballots than…
Colorado Rockies Houston Astros Los Angeles Dodgers St. Louis Cardinals San Francisco Giants Toronto Blue Jays COLORADO ROCKIES Outrighted PH-B Adam Melhuse to Colorado Springs. [10/13] Okay, this transaction falls outside of the period in question, but there’s an amusing story here. Dan O’Dowd has a problem. He likes having Adam Melhuse around, so much…
National League Dusty Baker proved to be as popular with IBA voters as he is with the national media, running away and hiding to win his first IBA Manager of the Year crown. Tony LaRussa beat out Bobby Cox for the runner-up slot, although Cox received more first-place votes than LaRussa. Perhaps reflecting a season…
On October 8, 1995, I sat in shocked silence as Edgar Martinez broke my heart, lining a double into the left-field corner of the Kingdome, eliminating the Yankees from the playoffs and ending the career of my all-time favorite player, Don Mattingly. I can’t say for sure that knowing what would follow would have made…
It seems a shame that the first thing that comes to mind after a game–after a series–that has been so exciting is a criticism. But there’s no way I can write about this game and not have one single, overriding thought. Where was Armando Benitez? Tie game in the ninth inning, two outs, two poor…
Several readers have written in to ask me about the comments I made in my latest ESPN.com piece, in which I argued that Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius are no longer useful baseball players, particularly given their salaries. The gist of the feedback is that because Martinez had driven in 100 runs in all of…
Game Four was another very good game with some interesting critical tactical decisions. We got to see Joe Torre get as creative as he’s going to get and we got to see Bobby Valentine get boxed into a couple of corners and dodge some bullets. Torre’s decision to yank Denny Neagle with two outs in…