[I’d like to note that the April 1 Week In Quotes was an April Fool’s joke and entirely made up. We now return to actual quotes, already in progress] CAREER EXTENSIONS "This is Rickey calling on behalf of Rickey." —Rickey Henderson, Padres outfielder, in a message left on the answering machine of Padres general manager…
The season has started! The season has started! OK, I’m a complete geek, but how can you help but be excited if you’re a baseball nut? Yesterday’s opener was the appetizer, and today brings about a half-schedule of games (including seven on TV in my area). Without further ado, here are my NL predictions. Unlike…
National League East JeffBower ClayDavenport JeffHildebrand GaryHuckabay RanyJazayerli ChrisKahrl KeithLaw AtlantaBraves 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 New YorkMets 2 2 2 3 2 1 3 FloridaMarlins 3 4 3 2 4 4 4 MontrealExpos 4 5 5 4 3 3 2 PhiladelphiaPhillies 5 3 4 5 5 5 5 MatOlkin DavePease JoeSheehan MichaelWolverton…
REPEAT OFFENDER "As an organization, we’ve always been big supporters of Mark Quinn, but both Dee Brown and Raul Ibanez had great camps and we needed to make room. By trading for Jason Isringhausen and Frank Menechino, we now have the best bullpen in the league and a veteran utility player who can provide offense…
American League East JeffBower ClayDavenport JeffHildebrand GaryHuckabay RanyJazayerli ChrisKahrl KeithLaw New YorkYankees 1 2 1 1 1 2 1 BostonRed Sox 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 TorontoBlue Jays 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Tampa BayDevil Rays 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 BaltimoreOrioles 5 5 5 5 5 5 5…
Sorry about yesterday, folks: technical difficulties kept this from getting up. Look for my NL predictions Saturday. The American League looks to be a little less interesting than the NL this year. The gap between the league’s best teams and the next tier down is fairly significant, and there are more AL teams with no…
Monday’s article by Keith Scherer caused a few people to inquire about a particular statement, that the International League was clearly the top minor league. The statement was inspired by a chart in Baseball Prospectus 2001, in the introduction to the Davenport Translations. Given the level of response to Scherer’s use–correct use, in this case–of…
Last year around this time, we introduced an award in honor of a player whose aggressiveness at the plate has become legendary. And while it was a rough year for Gary DiSarcina otherwise, the founding of the DiSar Award was a rousing success. Not much comfort to the man who missed most of the season…
Part One Part Two Part Three Most spring training games are in the afternoon, but every so often there is an evening game, and with a lot of the parks being relatively close together, it’s possible to catch a day/night doubleheader, which is what I did on Friday. The first game was the Twins and…
The Red Sox got the news yesterday they’d been trying to avoid for all of March: Nomar Garciaparra is going to need surgery and will be out for at least two months, and for as many as four. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this loss. For the most part, teams and the media…
Part One Part Two Part Three Now that we’ve released this season’s Top 40 Prospects list, it is time to return to a tradition we started last season, to objectively evaluate our list from a year ago and see what we can learn. As we did last season, we will compare our ranking of each…
Davenport Translations: ERA BA OBP SLG International League 4.38 .266 .335 .416 According to Clay Davenport’s Translations, the International League has the highest degree of difficulty of all the minor leagues. The Pacific Coast League is well known for high-scoring games and skewed statistics, but the IL is neutral, favoring neither batters nor pitchers. Its…
Part One Part Two The five teams who train on the Gulf Coast of Florida south of Tampa Bay are, from north to south, the Pirates in Bradenton, the Reds in Sarasota, the Rangers in Port Charlotte, and the Red Sox and Twins, both in Fort Myers (with different stadiums). Wednesday, I headed all the…