The Pirates boldly go, the Big Unit reaches 300, the reluctant Astros face reality, plus news and notes from around the big leagues.
A conversation with a comer in the Reds’ organization, covering ground afield and divergent development paths at the plate.
The remaining eight contestants have a look at baseball beyond or below the major leagues.
The most beautiful thing in the world is a ballpark filled with people. – Bill Veeck As the scoreboard programmer for the Trenton Thunder in their inaugural season (1994), one of my daily tasks was to enter in player averages from the compiled statistics faxed to us from the Howe News Bureau. Before I did…
Most Baseball Prospectus readers are familiar with the challenge of putting together a fantasy baseball team. Owners spend weeks scouring various information sources (including BP’s own Player Forecast Manager), sorting through hundreds of players to determine those that will be the most productive or are most likely to be undervalued by the dozen or so…
Major League Baseball is loaded with talented outfielders in their early 20s right now. The deep rookie class of 2009, featuring the likes of (among others) Dexter Fowler, Fernando Martinez, Cameron Maybin, Andrew McCutchen and Colby Rasmus, will only add to the riches in the future. And the pipeline isn’t close to drying up. The…
What do you know about what the baseball draft produces? Most fans probably have some sense of the history of their favorite team’s high profile draft picks. For instance, I’m a Phillies fan, and most Phillies fans know that many of their current stars, such as Cole Hamels, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins, are the…
In a shocking move Tuesday, the Pirates dealt Nate McLouth to the Braves, and called up heralded prospect Andrew McCutchen to take McLouth’s center field duties. The 21-year-old McCutchen was hitting .303 (61-for-201) with four home runs, 20 RBIs and 10 stolen bases for Triple-A Indianapolis prior to his promotion. For the Bucs, McLouth was…
There were two hot tickets for central Virginians in the summer of 1992: the new rock band from Charlottesville that featured both a saxophone and a violin, and the AAA All-Star Game hosted by the Richmond Braves. Seventeen years later, Dave Matthews Band have established themselves as one of the biggest touring bands in the…
Back in 2003, just after Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi had cut over 20 million from Toronto’s payroll and was still managing to moneyball his way to an 86 win season, some members of the Toronto press foolishly accused him of racism. The accusations, which concerned the racial make-up of the team, were so crudely conceived…
I got started on a life of number crunching playing in and then keeping the records for the summer league in my hometown of Johnstown, Pa. Since 1946, our league has been the host for the All-American Amateur Baseball Association National Tournament (AAABA, pronounced Triple-A-B-A). Each summer, nearly 300 of the country’s best players 20…