Yakety Sax and Perfect Catch Continue reading →

Recently a NFL writer at bleacher report named Bryn Swartz has taken on a project to select the 100 most memorable  NFL moments of the last decade. As a matter of fact I was helping him pick some of them just last night. I felt like this was a fun, albeit time consuming, project. I have decided to piggyback onto his idea, and do the same for MLB. This will be a pure celebration of baseball. There will be no off-field incidents on this list. The only thing that matters is the game that we love. It will be made up of events that happened between the 2004 and 2013 season. I will start unveiling the list next Monday, and hope to release 2 a day. At that rate we will be finishing up right around opening day, and hopefully get everybody gung-ho for baseball. If you would like to leave a comment with some of your favorite baseball moments from the last 10 years that would be greatly appreciated.

Back in 1989 the Indians were in a dismal place. They had lost over 100 games in each of the previous 2 seasons, and were in the middle of what appeared to be another lost season. They were trailing the White Sox for the division lead by what seemed to be an insurmountable margin. Their owner, the much hated Rachel Phelps, had just inherited the team from her recently deceased father and was planning on relocating to Miami. Rachel Phelps in many respects was Jeffrey Loria with a nicer smile. The team was destined for failure, but somehow pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and won the pennant. Sadly the records from the day do not tell us if they went on to win the World Series. I believe in 1994 a hidden tape was revealed that released this information, but I am a man of principal and refuse to watch such rubbish. Through a minor miracle I have stumbled upon some old scouting reports of the players that made this season possible. Perhaps they can shed a light on what gave these ragamuffins the will to succeed against such long odds. Continue reading →

Hello everybody!  Over the next few days I am going to be doing a series of articles previewing the playoffs. Since predicting 5 or 7 game series is a pointless endeavor, I am instead going to rank the remaining teams in particular areas. These are somewhat subjective, due to the fact that teams change over the course of a season, I can’t just go simply by WAR. I am well aware these articles are somewhat cliche, but they are fun and pretty much the only way to do a playoff preview that is worth a damn. A few notes before we begin; until we have a more clear picture as to what teams are going to be in the AL wildcard I will be including 11 teams instead of 10. The 11 teams are BOS, DET, OAK, CLE, TBR, TEX, ATL, STL, LAD, PIT, and CIN. Once one of the 11 is eliminated I will no longer include them. Also these rankings are just based on current starters, I will be doing a bench rankings later, but players don’t get rest days in the postseason. One final note, I am including catcher in the middle infield list. You may feel it should be it’s own separate category, but you aren’t writing this are you? Sorry, that was uncalled for, anywho off  to the rankings. Continue reading →

Coming into this season the NL East was not supposed to be particularly close. There was projected to be 1 terrible team, 2 mediocre teams, 1 team contending for one of the wild card spots, and 1 team competing  for the leagues best record. That is exactly how it has turned out, just not with the teams we had in mind. The Nationals, at least in my opinion, were supposed to be chasing 100 victories, and instead have struggled with injuries and poor hitting. They are currently one spot out of the 2nd wildcard, but are 7 games behind Cincinnati. The Braves, who I assumed would be an above average team, have been flat out great. Atlanta has the best winning percentage in the league, and only second to St. Louis for the NL lead in run differential.   They lead the Majors in ERA at 3.20. That isn’t an AL/NL DH fluke either, they also lead in ERA+ at 122. A lot of that is propelled by a dominant bullpen, but still their starters rank 6th in ERA at 3.61. That is not just because they have some great defensive players in Andrelton Simmons and Jason Heyward. They also rank 6th in starters FIP. The problem, if you can call it a problem, is they have too many quality starting pitchers. They have 6 pitchers currently pitching regularly in the rotation. They do not have a 6 man staff in the traditional sense, a lot of it is necessitated by injuries, but Fredi Gonzalez has sneaked in starts by other guys to get pitchers rest. It is fun to give Gonzalez crap for his many boneheaded decisions, but I think he has handled the staff very well this year. However come playoff time he will only need 4 of these pitchers in the starting rotation and they have all pitched well. It won’t be easy to choose who to go with. Continue reading →

This past off-season the Marlins made one of the most selfish moves in recent baseball history. They convinced the city of Miami to build a fancy new stadium, complete with a ridiculous dolphin statue that lights up after homeruns . From there they promised to return the revenue back into on field talent. They had appeared to be sticking to that promise, by signing Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, and Heath Bell. However after just one unsuccessful season they traded all 3 guys, along with other expensive talented players like Josh Johnson, for a completely underwhelming package. There was strong rumblings that superstar slugger Giancarlo Stanton was fed up with owner Jeffrey Loria, who already uplifted the Expos from Montreal, and wanted out. Everything pointed to all future moves being made with money being the number one consideration.  This Spring Training there was a 20 year old Cuban pitcher that was making scouts drool all over themselves. He had never pitched above High A, and was holding his own against Major Leaguers. All indications were the Marlins were going to send him to AA, and probably keep him in the minors until past the Super 2 deadline of 2014. Quite frankly nobody would have blamed them, it would have been the practical thing to do. Boy am I glad they went against conventional thinking, and let Jose Fernandez be in the big leagues, because he is a whole lot of fun.

Continue reading →

I doubt anybody reading this cares about pitcher wins and losses. They are an archaic metric for judging pitcher performance. There is so much information available these days, that relying on a players record is inexcusable. However there is one group of people who still care about such things, the players, and quite frankly isn’t that for the best. I want my players caring more about the team accomplishment than the individual, and I don’t believe it is just lip service when a player says that it is irrelevant how they performed if the team lost. I was looking on Baseball Reference and found a game where I am sure the pitcher felt he let his team down, despite having maybe the best game of his life.

Continue reading →

Earlier today Dan posed a question on here asking people’s opinions on PED’s and the Hall of Fame. In his post he proposed the example of Rafael Palmeiro as a player with a Hall of Fame caliber career, but with a failed steroid test. In my response I said that it is irrelevant to me if a player used performance, but I would not vote for Palmeiro simply because I do not believe he was a good enough player. This led many people to question me and my thought process. I explained to them that in my opinion longevity is a very small portion of a players case for Cooperstown. I thought that although Palmeiro had an undoubtedly great career, he was not an elite player for any duration of his time as a Major Leaguer.  This led me to start analyzing internally what is a HOFer in my opinion. To me it is a player that proved he was truly great for many seasons.

I have conducted a new type of Hall. This in no way is a complete list of who I would have as Hall of Fame inductees. My basis for this Hall of Fame is to find players that were well enough above league average for a long enough time to be considered great. The methodology is simple. The general consensus is that a player with a WAR of 6 in a year is at the very worst a legitimate All-Star worthy player that season. I have found every player since 1901 whom has had a season of at least 6 WAR. From there I have taken all of their seasons at this benchmark. After that I have counted the total number in said seasons above 6. For example, Mike Trout last year had a 10.9 WAR according to Baseball Reference, and in this scenario he would receive 4.9 points last year, for having a WAR 4.9 above 6. This year he has a WAR of 7.7 giving him 1.7 points. Adding those together he has a total “WAR above 6” number of 6.6. I determined that a total “WAR above 6” number of 12 is worthy of spot in the All Peak Hall of Fame. Amazingly, Trout is over half way there, and he is not even through his 2nd full season. Also of note, Palmeiro’s number is 1.2, nowhere near the cutoff for this list.

The list after the break.

Continue reading →

To call any of Mariano Rivera’s seasons elite seems kind of pointless. I don’t think anyone would argue that he is definitively the greatest relief pitcher of all time. He  currently has the 16th most Pitching Runs ever, despite having only the 805th most innings accumulated. His 205 ERA+ is the greatest in MLB history. He had stretch where  in 8 of 9 seasons he had an ERA below 2. There is a reason that he was the focal point of this years All Star Game. Nobody has been able to do what Mo has done. When you add in his postseason credentials it’s a slam dunk Hall of Fame case, something rarely, if ever, said about a relief pitcher. However, I feel there is one season that stands out among the rest. In 2008, at the ripe old age of 38, Mariano may have put together the best year of his career.

Continue reading →

Here is the 2nd part of the list of best offensive seasons listed by player age. For the criteria, and my picks for ages 18-29 please check out part 1. Enjoy! Continue reading →