The Twins are falling, and therefore, so is the sky, according to those who drink heavily at the fountain of MLB swill. It’s no surprise that one of the first cries showed up on MLB’s own site. Mike Bauman, apparently just purchased from Jim Henson Productions, issued a typically opinion-laden, fact-free piece last week stating…
I got a great question from reader Keith Blue over the weekend: Albert Pujols is the obvious frontrunner for the NL Rookie of the Year Award. But who would you rather have in the long run: Pujols or Adam Dunn? I’ll admit, this stood out because it was a rare missive that didn’t include the…
Through the beneficence of an anonymous, nonexistent informant, Baseball Prospectus has obtained tapes of an actual conversation from the night of July 31. "Hello?" "Carl?" "Yes. Who’s this?" "What do you mean who’s this? It’s Bud!" "Bud…oh, yes, Bud. What can I do for you?" "It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?" "What…
COACHING "Sometimes, they learn better from their peers than us genius coaches." —Bob Boone, Reds manager, on pitcher Jose Rijo‘s tutelage of Jose Acevedo "I think he’s going to be a good big league player. He’s very disciplined for a young hitter. He takes a walk. He hits the ball to the other way well….
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…
I’ve spent some time on the road this week, which is why this is just the second DP since the weekend. I’m going to be bouncing around the East Coast, seeing friends and family, for most of the next few weeks, so the column’s schedule may be even more erratic than usual. As an aside,…
The Great Imbalancer went away, conducting some major business transactions of his own, but he’s back because he’s needed. The lies and filth of MLB ownership are starting to build like dot-com resumes in a recruiter’s inbox. The latest is a real classic: John Henry, new owner of the Florida Marlins and perhaps holder of…
The American League Rookie of the Year Award has been considered a foregone conclusion since about early May, thanks to the hot starts of the Mariners and their first-year sensation, Ichiro Suzuki. Should it be, though? Here are the performances of Ichiro and the Indians’ C.C. Sabathia: AVG OBP SLG PA SB/CS EqA RARP Rank…
YES, SARGE "Early in his career, Sammy [Sosa] was very similar. He wanted to hit the ball out of the ballpark, but he wouldn’t get a good pitch. That’s just a matter of not waiting long enough. But he was aggressive. That was his mind-set. If you look at Sammy now, he’s a much more…
"I have this strange feeling of…deja-vu…" "I have this strange feeling of…deja-vu…" "I have this strange feeling of…deja-vu…" Only on "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" could this happen. Or maybe at Wrigley Field, where the worries about Kerry Wood‘s health are constant. Two weeks ago, ominous creaking sounds began to emanate from Wood’s right shoulder. At…
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…
My previous column on reaching-base-via-error rates for batters generated the most responses yet in the short life of this column, which I think warrants a follow-up column responding to some of the reader mail on the topic. By far the most common point made by readers was that I neglected to consider handedness when I…
There’s a segment of informed, intelligent baseball fans who would prefer that performance analysts spend less time criticizing the management of MLB teams. The notion that "they may know things we don’t" is popular in some circles, and is used as a defense for decisions that we, as informed outsiders, find bizarre or even infuriating….
I wrote something similar to what follows a year ago, but I think it’s a concept worth repeating. Over the last week or so, I’ve managed to up the flow into my inbox by about 50%. I did this by, in no particular order, making a lousy choice of lead in a column with political…