The Tampa Bay Devil Rays have done a lot of things right this winter, from not spending millions on additional veteran mediocrities to turning nominal closer Roberto Hernandez into a great young hitter who has already been locked up into his arbitration years (Ben Grieve). But they could be on the verge of making a…
What follows is not, in any way, shape or form, demonstrative evidence of anything. It’s just interesting, worth sharing and discussing, and doesn’t really mean diddlysquat. Yet. The big story this spring on the field is the effort to reestablish the strike zone as it was originally designed. The short, elongated rectangle of recent years…
Part One Part Two Part Three On my last day in Arizona, my brother and I decided to see a game in Tempe, which would let me catch a fourth game and still make my flight out of town from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport ("The Airport With the Needlessly Long Name"). Phoenix is about…
Some columns go in a slightly different direction than you intended. I sat down to write a piece about the potential impacts of the unbalanced schedule on the very best players in the game. I was going to base it on last year’s winning percentage, and see what stars might have an opportunity to post…
Part One Part Two The sky in Tucson was filled with choppy clouds with dark grey undersides, an appropriate a reflection of my mood, when I walked outside to gauge what we’d need to pack for the day’s Diamondbacks-Cubs game. It was the only game in town today, the best advance tickets I could get…
Last week, I received a note from one of our readers, Peter Simon: Is there any chance this year’s Orioles will be the worst offensive team ever, compared to league averages? I haven’t done any statistical research of my own on it, but just looking at their lineup, things look bleak for them. The Orioles…
Part One Last night I was in a bar in Tucson that my brother works at called the French Quarter, which is a nice place with a bunch of cool people. One guy stuck out to me. He was drinking a water at the bar, taking up two stools in turning sideways, and looking around…
Tucson is a sprawling city with wide streets built on a grid, featuring the University of Arizona. It has a crime problem and a ton of those annoying street kids who panhandle all day to buy high-end hiking shoes, skateboards, and nice second-hand clothes they can wear in hip bars as they nurse premium beers…
One of the central tenets of performance analysis is the idea that position players generally peak between the ages of 25 and 29. The evidence for this is a study initially published in the 1982 Bill James Baseball Abstract There are exceptions, and there is some evidence that players may be peaking later (or declining…
The Pirates continue to astound us with their incompetence. This week, they signed Scott Sauerbeck, the very definition of free talent (he was taken from the Mets via the Rule 5 draft in December of 1998), to a three-year, $2.4-million deal. Although that’s not a lot of money, and we generally advocate locking good young…
Is it doable, and more important, is it even necessary?
Some things to ponder should Albert Belle retire: Belle was a great player at his peak whose career was on a Cooperstown trajectory until it was tragically cut short due to a medical condition basically unrelated to baseball playing. Sound familiar? Do you feel a sympathy vote coming on? Anyone think he’ll get the same…
Monday morning, I spent about 15 minutes on the the air in College Station, Tex., discussing the Houston Astros. Last year, of course, the Astros were perhaps the most disappointing team in the game, stumbling from a three-year run atop the NL Central to a 72-90 record and a fourth-place finish. The team wasn’t quite…