6-4-3

6-4-3: Brain Dump: A’s/Yankees

Just finished watching Jason Isringhausen raise my already morbidly high blood pressure. Some empty thoughts: Does anyone else get the impression that Fox is horrified by the idea of actually showing either the batter or pitcher prepare for the next pitch? After every pitch, the director seemed to try to get as many camera shots...

6-4-3: Assigned the Impossible

by Gary Huckabay 10/01

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...

6-4-3: Dolor

by Gary Huckabay 9/17

Last Tuesday morning at about 7 a.m., the phone on my nightstand rang. Normally, this isn’t a big deal. It’s usually someone from the east coast who’s either forgotten about the time difference, or who’s decided that it’s time for me to get up and help them out with something. But on this morning, the...

6-4-3: The Red Sox over Pizza and Beer

by Gary Huckabay 9/07

(Editor’s Note: The promised "Heaven on Earth" feature has not been completed yet, but will run next week. Really. For now, this is a conversation that took place on Thursday, September 6 between Gary Huckabay and two long suffering citizens of Red Sox Nation. The three of us watched the 1978 one-game playoff together at...

6-4-3: Reader Mail

by Gary Huckabay 8/24

We at Baseball Prospectus have a feature where we respond to selected e-mails from our readers. You can find this "From the Mailbag" feature on a recurring basis under the Features section of the BP main page. But today, I want to take this opportunity to respond to a few of the e-mails I’ve received...

6-4-3: Push Over the Top, Part Three

by Gary Huckabay 8/17

Two weeks ago, I asked readers to put themselves in the shoes of the management of the Kansas City Royals, turn back the clock to about a week before the Jermaine Dye trade, and come up with suggestions on how to best run the franchise. Last week, I did my best to share the flavor...

6-4-3: Push Over the Top, Part Two (of Three)

by Gary Huckabay 8/10

Last week, I asked people to put themselves into the Johnston-Murphys of either Allard Baird or David Glass, prior to the trades of Jermaine Dye and Rey Sanchez, and come up with a plan of action for the Kansas City Royals. I had no idea of the scope of solutions from which people would choose...

6-4-3: Push Over the Top, Part One

by Gary Huckabay 8/03

The frenzy surrounding the July 31 trade deadline is a relatively new phenomenon. I don’t know–and am too lazy to check–whether there are more deals around deadline time now than there were, say, 10 years ago, but to my untrained eye, it sure appears as if there’s a lot more attention paid to "Deal Week"...

6-4-3: Weaponry

by Gary Huckabay 7/27

During my first stint living in the Bay Area, I spent a lot of time watching A’s broadcasts on local TV. There was usually one broadcast on a weekday night, and one broadcast on the weekend–usually on Sunday, preceded by Mel Allen on "This Week in Baseball." I remember back to when I was at...

6-4-3: Puddle of Consciousness

by Gary Huckabay 7/20

Who’s more crack-addled? The Detroit Tigers for offering Roger Cedeno a three-year deal worth $4.5 million annually, or Cedeno for turning it down? Cedeno is 26, with career numbers of .277/.356/.370, and he’s perhaps a 50/15 SB/CS guy. How does this guy push your club towards a championship at that price? As a fourth outfielder,...

6-4-3: Derek Jeter’s D

by Gary Huckabay 7/13

Debates about defense in baseball can be extremely contentious and frustrating. There’s very little in the way of a generally accepted canon of evidence upon which people will agree, and a great deal of weight is place on personal observation. That makes it very difficult to question someone’s position about a particular player without at...

6-4-3: Fear

by Gary Huckabay 6/29

Not surprisingly, after I did the ESPN chat last week, I received about 400 e-mails from people who participated or read the transcript afterwards. About 25% of those were from Derek Jeter fans/apologists, and his defense, along with that of Omar Vizquel, appears to be one of the hottest buttons in baseball. I’ll be discussing...

6-4-3: Q&A: Ryan Ludwick

by Gary Huckabay 6/22

Ryan Ludwick is an outfielder in the Oakland Athletics system. The A’s selected him in the second round in 1999 out of UNLV, and he’s been working his way up the system by hitting for power and playing notable defense since then. Ludwick is currently in the Texas League at Midland, where he’s hitting .269...

6-4-3: A Change to the Graceful

by Gary Huckabay 6/19

I was ready to write a 6-4-3 this week that gave Cam Bonifay as fond a farewell as possible, focusing on his tremendous deal that brought Brian Giles to the Pirates in exchange for Ricardo Rincon. It was an absolutely masterful deal, one that could have been the cornerstone for a very successful franchise. Mr....

6-4-3: Out at the Bell

by Gary Huckabay 6/08

I spent most of Thursday battling Bay Area traffic, largely because my wife and I had tickets to go catch the Padres/Giants finale out at Pacific Bell Park. Pac Bell is really a great place to see a ballgame, and would pretty much be perfect if it weren’t for the fact that I loathe its...

6-4-3: The Key’s Already on Your Ring

by Gary Huckabay 6/01

We’re getting close to this year’s Cooperstown festivities, when the media’s attention turns to grainy footage of the newly enshrined and the current travails of Peter Edward Rose. And what of Pete these days? Rose has been trying to build public support for his enshrinement nearly non-stop for more than a decade. Well, perhaps not...