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…
The big story Thursday came out of Jupiter, Fla., where the Montreal Expos walked three consecutive times. That’s an amazing feat for a team routinely near the bottom of the league in walks drawn, and an encouraging sign for those of us who expect the Expos to make at least some noise in the NL…
(Ed. note: On the heels of Derek Zumsteg’s jaunt through Arizona, Jeff Hildebrand is making his way around Florida. He’ll be filing periodic reports during his trip.) Part One One of the reasons teams have trained in Florida for years is because there isn’t much in the way of consistent, heavy rain to disrupt the…
Czar Bud has issued a gag order on his fellow owners, and despite Selig’s relative lack of power, the owners have so far decided to abide by the edict and clam up. The taboo subject? The impending labor talks and possible work stoppage that currently loom over the 2002 season. Many fans are no doubt…
With his options nearly exhausted and the chance that he would forever remain three walks shy of the all-time record growing larger by the day, Rickey Henderson accepted an offer from the Padres for $300,000, payable if he makes the team. What’s unusual is that the deal contains none of the playing-time-driven incentives you typically…
Part One Part Two 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 player with…
(Ed. note: On the heels of Derek Zumsteg’s jaunt through Arizona, Jeff Hildebrand is making his way around Florida. He’ll be filing periodic reports during his trip.) The Tampa/St. Petersburg area is home to four Grapefruit League sites. The Yankees play in Tampa proper. On the other side of the bay, the Rays play their…