We’ve passed the halfway point between the last out of the World Series and the first pitch of Spring Training. This is always a dreary time in the calendar for baseball fans. Many of the… Read more »
COMMENTARY
As soon as Chicago Cubs prospect Javier Baez was called up in August, he was a must-watch, for one very specific reason: he swung a bat just about as hard as you can imagine anyone swinging…. Read more »
After a relatively quiet offseason, Wednesday the Washington Nationals traded fan-favorite RHP Tyler Clippard to the Oakland Athletics for shortstop Yunel Escobar. Oakland acquired Escobar a few days ago in the Ben Zobrist trade with… Read more »
The Atlanta Braves traded Evan Gattis to the Houston Astros Wednesday, receiving three prospects and sending a suspect minor-league pitcher to complete the transaction. In another NL East-AL West swap, Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane… Read more »
Before I began living the luxurious life of a Banished to the Pen writer, I used to test video games. I worked on and off on contracts for Sony and Electronic Arts. During my stints… Read more »
The Braves get a nice haul for The White Bear
Protecting the world from nuclear waste, and Alex Presley.
Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention. I’ve just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you to stop what you’re doing and listen. Offense is down in… Read more »
Sometimes, when I’m driving to work in the morning, I wonder what and how Kris Bryant is doing. Is he sitting in traffic on the way to work, too? Is it hard to drive a… Read more »
Jackie Bradley might yet turn out to be an odd man out in the Boston Red Sox outfield. The Sox traded Yoenis Cespedes in December, but they still have Hanley Ramirez, Rusney Castillo, Shane Victorino,… Read more »
As first reported last week by Ken Rosenthal and Paul Morosi of Fox Sports, the St. Louis Cardinals are currently exploring options to add depth to their pitching staff. They don’t appear to be aiming low. So far they have been name-dropped in trades for Cole Hamels and David Price and called a potential bidder in the Max Scherzer sweepstakes. James Shields’s name was briefly thrown around as well.
Max Scherzer is a hell of a pitcher, and he’s worth a whole bunch of money. He’s been waiting out the off-season thus far, in the way that Boras clients tend to, seemingly holding out… Read more »
The Oakland Athletics acquired Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar from the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday, sending in return John Jaso, top Oakland prospect Daniel Robertson, left-hitting minor-league outfielder Boog Powell and cash. I wrote… Read more »
Continuing the revolving door of the A’s offseason, the A’s have made a big move to prove that the rebuilding plan is happening right now, and isn’t a long term move. To that point, they have traded John Jaso, Daniel Robertson, and Boog Powell (Herschel “Boog”, not John “Boog” of yesteryear) for Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar. First, let’s talk about the players coming in.
Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics value the future; they just don’t think about it the same way you do. That’s what I’m coming to understand about the team, as Beane radically reshapes a roster… Read more »
Clayton Kershaw won the NL MVP last year. There are many who feel that a pitcher should not be eligible for the MVP, since they only play in about 32 games and position players play… Read more »
Sometime this fall, I nearly posted an article cleverly entitled, “Does Bat Speed Help One Bat Against Speed?” It was to be an exploration of Javier Baez’s struggles in his first Major League stint. Honestly,… Read more »
The 2015 MLB Hall of Fame class has been announced and John Smoltz, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Craig Biggio will join the 211 players currently enshrined in the Hall. As with any Hall of… Read more »
It’s official, Randy Johnson is a first ballot Hall of Famer! Over his twenty-two year career the lanky lefty amassed more than 300 wins, five Cy Young Awards (including four straight with the Venomous Snakes!), and more black… Read more »
There has been a lot of hype about the new MLBAM StatCast system, a player-tracking/raw data machine. With all of this new data will come a need for more data analysis, and most likely, a… Read more »
Amid that wild, wacky flurry of activity that turned over baseball in early and mid-December, the Los Angeles Dodgers remade their infield, swapping out Dee Gordon for Howie Kendrick at second base and trading for… Read more »
I’m always a little bit behind the crowd when it comes to the early pair of annual publications that brighten baseball’s offseason, because I wait and ask for them as Christmas gifts. This year, I… Read more »
The Cincinnati Reds traded for Marlon Byrd last week. That’s not the most exciting sentence in the world is it? The response on social media was equally lackluster. It’s not that people ignored the trade, but it seemed to leave everyone feeling a little indifferent. This trade felt a lot like the argyle socks that you got for Christmas two weeks ago – you weren’t terribly excited about them, but you did need to replace a few pairs with holes in them.
Voting for the 2015 MLB Hall of Fame class has ended, and soon we will know who will be inducted into the hallowed halls of Cooperstown. Over the next few weeks you’ll hear pundits and… Read more »
I haven’t posted here at Banished to the Pen in, wow, it’s been nearly three weeks. This is a short post about my absence, my return, and the stray thoughts reentering the work flow here has… Read more »
A lot of St. Louis Cardinal fans, myself included, were a bit surprised when Sierra was selected as the Cardinals’ Minor League Player of the Year last month alongside Marco Gonzales, who was given the same award for pitchers. Surprised because other than hearing his name in passing a few times, I really didn’t know much about him. Unlike Gonzales, who made his debut on June 25th and had an established role with the club during the 2014 postseason, Sierra seemed to have sprung up from nowhere.
“The Jays have their Rogers ‘homer’ Centre, the Yankees have a little-league-calibre right field porch, Camden Yards in Baltimore also helps run scoring, as does Fenway Park’s 37-foot high, 231-foot long Green Monster. So, for example, when we hear Rick Porcello is headed to Boston, that only means trouble, right?”
“Much has been made of the fact in Redsland that Joey Votto doesn’t seem to have the power that he used to. Most fans point to the fateful collision with Pablo Sandoval back on June 29, 2012, and the numbers seem to bear that out.”
“Although the 2015 season is still months away, it doesn’t hurt to look ahead, or in a sense look back. In this instance, I wanted to throw some red flags on players who may have been fortunate in 2014.”
“Last week, Trea Turner was not traded from the Padres to the Nationals. He wasn’t traded because players can’t be traded until a year after they signed – June 13, 2015 in Turner’s case. The asset that was included in the deal was a player to be named later (PTBNL). PTBNLs don’t need to be named until six months later. Conveniently, Turner would be eligible to be traded at this point. (Of course, it was Turner in the trade – I’m just pointing out the technicality).”
