Doug’s doing all the heavy lifting around here this spring, and acquitting himself admirably, but I thought I’d lend a hand.  I don’t have much of substance to offer, but here’s a frivolity I adapted from my own site.

Who are the greatest active players in Major League Baseball?  Are they the guys with the most career WAR?  The guys who have never turned in a bad season?  The guys who had the highest peaks?  I think we’d all agree the answer is a combination of those three things, perhaps weighted toward the former.  I developed a simple formula using fangraphs WAR to combine accumulated value, consistency, and peak:

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A look at some of the action this week.

Braves@Reds – Reds take two of three in closely contested set

• In the opener, the Braves prevailed 2-1, getting to Reds’ closer Aroldis Chapman in the 9th inning of a tie game. Philip Gosselin was the hero, posting a .508 WPA after he delivered a one-out pinch-hit single, advanced to second on a following single by Nick Markakis, stole 3rd base, and scored on a two out wild pitch. It’s only the second searchable game that a Brave pinch-hitter has posted a WPA above 0.5 with a hit, run and stolen base.

More after the jump.

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Asked to choose their poison, COG voters had no qualms about going Big! Paul “Big Poison” Waner was the clear favorite in winning election in the 93rd round of COG balloting. A Pirate mainstay starting from his 1926 rookie season, Waner would author a 3000-hit career highlighted by numerous franchise records, many of which still stand today.

More on Waner after the jump.

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This post is for voting and discussion in the 94th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round adds to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1897. Rules and lists are after the jump.

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Here’s a quick look at selected series this week, with a focus on the front-running teams.

More after the jump.

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This was a peaceful hubbub, though, as “King” Carl Hubbell, near the top of the voting in his first five COG ballot appearances, was a popular selection in earning induction in the 92nd round of COG balloting. In a close two-way race, Hubbell edged Paul Waner, with Roy Campanella placing third and collecting an additional round of guaranteed COG eligibility.

More on Hubbell after the jump.

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This Circle of Greats (COG) vote is not to induct anyone into the Circle, but only to select two players who will either be: restored back on to the main ballot after having been previously been dropped from eligibility; or made eligible for the COG ballot if previously ineligible. This part two of our eighth “redemption round” (we’ve been holding such redemption rounds interspersed among the regular voting rounds every tenth voting round or so) gives voters a chance to reconsider past candidates who have previously fallen off the regular induction ballots, or to consider candidates who were not previously eligible for that ballot.

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This post is for voting and discussion in the 93rd round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round adds to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1898. Rules and lists are after the jump.

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Jim Fanning, who can reasonably be called the “father” of the Montreal Expos franchise, has died at the age of 87.

Fanning had been working in the Braves’ organization when the Commissioner’s office hired him in 1968 to start up MLB’s first scouting bureau. Fanning had only just arrived in the Commissioner’s office when John McHale, another MLB employee with whom Fanning had worked with the Braves, was named President and CEO of the newly christened Expos. McHale tapped Fanning to be his new GM, the first of many positions in which Fanning would serve the Expos for most of the franchise’s  36 seasons in “La Belle Province”. Included were two brief stints as the on-field manager, the first when taking over from Dick Williams in the final month of the 1981 season and guiding the Expos to their only NL East crown.

I can’t add much to SABR’s excellent biography by Norm King (except to say that Fanning is the first Illinois-born player to die in Ontario, Canada), so I will just commend  the article to your reading pleasure.

White Sox@Orioles – Orioles win most unusual game

• The unrest in Baltimore resulted in the postponement of the first two games of the series and the finale being played in an empty stadium.
• ESPN reported today that the pace of play rule changes have resulted in average 9-inning game times dropping by more than 7 minutes from the same point in the schedule last year. That effect may have been enhanced by the empty stadium as the Orioles thumped the Sox 8-2 in just 2:03, the shortest 9-inning Oriole home game when scoring 8+ runs since the O’s beat the Tigers 8-1 on Sep 24, 1975 (a game similarly lacking in onlookers, with fewer than 5,000 on hand).

More after the jump.

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