He won’t set any home-run records this season, nor will he get close. He’s not going to be the MVP, and it would be hard to argue that he’s enjoyed this season as much as the last two. Nevertheless, this is probably the best season of Sammy Sosa‘s career. Yup. Better than his award-winning, crowd-pleasing…
It’s good to be back. It’s good to be anywhere but within the clutches of the Russ Branyan Fan Club, actually. These were no benevolent captors, let me tell you. You don’t know pain until you’ve been forced to watch every one of Rey Ordonez‘s 2,212 career plate appearances. I tried to put on a…
BOSTON RED SOX Acquired RHP Hector Carrasco from the Twins for OF-R Lew Ford. [9/10] Signed RHP Steve Ontiveros. [9/11] Increasingly desperate times call for increasingly desperate measures, but neither of these moves are bad so much as slightly embarrassing. By Michael Wolverton’s Reliever Evaluation Tools, Hector Carrasco had not done the Twins any favors,…
All the many positive and exciting things that happened this weekend were overshadowed by the horrifying event of Friday night. Red Sox reliever Bryce Florie was hit in the face by a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Ryan Thompson. Florie suffered a broken orbital bone and damage to his right eyeball, and…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Activated RHP Tim Belcher from the DL; transferred RHP Seth Etherton from the 15- to the 60-day DL. [9/7] Now that Seth Etherton’s season is over and the Angels will have to waste two starts out of five watching timeservers Tim Belcher and Scott Karl get hammered, I suppose it wouldn’t be the…
SAVE THE WATER COOLERS! "That’s just me. I don’t try to please anyone. I show emotion sometimes. This was one of those cases." — Mike Hampton, Mets pitcher, who threw his glove, a towel, his cap, and punched a water cooler leaving the game after walking Pat Burrell "I like everything Mike Hampton does. I…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Recalled LHP Juan Alvarez from Edmonton. [9/5] Juan Alvarez rejoins the mix for a left-handed reliever job in next year’s bullpen. While I think the Angels are best off with Mike Holtz and Bryan Ward, if Ward struggles, Alvarez can slip in. While none of this may sound that significant, how they perform…
Who has the best record in baseball? OK, the White Sox. Who has the biggest lead in any division? OK, the Cardinals. But do you know who has the second-best record and second-biggest lead? The San Francisco Giants. The mid-payroll, mid-talent, picked-in-the-middle-of-the-division San Francisco Giants are playing just shy of .600 ball and have just…
Previous articles in this series: Introduction Second Base Third Base Shortstop This is the fourth in a series of rankings of major-league defenders, highlighting the top ten and bottom five at each position. The ratings are a combination of Zone Rating, Range Factor and my best (and admittedly grossly flawed) assessment of the job they’re…
In keeping with a previous theme, what can the teams in the NL Central accomplish in the time remaining to them? St. Louis Cardinals The Cardinals have the next four weeks to sort out a few mission-critical issues if they want to help themselves going into the playoffs. First, they have to use the time…
(Peter Schoenke, President of RotoNewsDirect.com, provides a guest column this week that serves as a rebuttal to Keith Law’s two recent articles on revenue sharing.) We’re one week into the NFL season and football fans everywhere can get excited. Just about every fan at this point thinks their team can make the playoffs. So your…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Recalled 2B-R Justin Baughman and RHP Ben Weber from Edmonton; purchased the contract of LHP Bryan Ward from Edmonton; activated C-B Matt Walbeck from the DL. [9/1] No real surprises or issues here. Justin Baughman makes for a nifty pinch-runner, Ben Weber is one of a hundred guys who could end up being…
It’s fair to say that Pedro Martinez has locked up the American League Cy Young Award. I’d like to think of it as a small feather in our cap: at midseason, our informal poll gave all ten votes to Mr. Martinez, while many other polls gave some votes, even the award at that point, to…
A week ago, the American League wild-card chase looked like a six-team scramble, with none of the contenders emerging as a favorite. Now, however, we’re seeing some separation at both the top and the bottom of the standings. At the top of the list, the Cleveland Indians have won six of eight games and established…
PEDRO "A no-hitter is not what’s going to dictate what kind of pitcher I am. I think my career is more interesting than one game." — Pedro Martinez, Red Sox pitcher, on having his no-hitter broken in the ninth by John Flaherty "I want to remain professional. Sometimes, it becomes increasingly difficult when you’re given…
Many of you have seen the work of Jeff Hildebrand here at the Web site and in Baseball Prospectus 2000. Last night, he sent out this missive: OK, so the majors aren’t the only ones who can do some screwy things about playoffs. I just found out something really weird about the International League playoff…