History is full of great rivalries. If one were trying to conceive of the Mt. Rushmore of animosity, it might just be Mozart vs. Salieri, Burr vs. Hamilton, Coke vs. Pepsi, and Stone Cold vs…. Read more »
Tyler Baber and Chris Baber talk to special guest Ben Lindbergh (of Effectively Wild and FiveThirtyEight) about the highs and lows of the recent “X-Files” mini-series, and the show’s legacy. You can hear Ben talk… Read more »
Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket” – which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention”; but the wise man saith, “Put all your… Read more »
In the 1959 Vincent Price horror film House on Haunted Hill, a menacing rich man invites a group of young strangers to survive the night at an enormous, ghastly estate he has co-opted for his… Read more »
To say the 2015 Oakland Athletics season was disappointing already reflects something about how you view them. After 2014, a year where they looked championship-caliber only to sputter into a Wild Card game exit, the… Read more »
There are, generally speaking (and it is dangerous of course to discuss these things too freely in terms of generalities), two types of villains in Shakespeare. There are individuals who become seduced towards immorality or… Read more »
Last year, I wrote the season preview for the Baltimore Orioles. This year I am at it again, albeit with far less enthusiasm and optimism. Whelp, it’s 2016 and I am two months from 30…. Read more »
In 2015, the Cincinnati Reds finished with a record of 64-98, scoring 640 runs and allowing 754 runs, and things don’t seem to be looking up. But hey, they play the games for a reason,… Read more »
At the beginning of the 2016 MLB season, the Atlanta Braves find themselves in the midst of a very public rebuilding process that is both literal and metaphorical. As they reconstruct their home, this time… Read more »
Last year, Banished to the Pen ran season previews in an “out of the box” format, wherein the writer posed questions and preceded to answer them in depth. This style of writing is familiar to… Read more »
Alec Denton and Nick Koss join Ryan Sullivan to talk about the nominees for the SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards, and the Red Sox and Braves.
Originally published on Mattingly’s Sideburns. February is a time for baseball optimism. The heavy-lifting of the offseason is over. Free agents have found a home for the upcoming season. Pitchers and catchers are just… Read more »
A second part in the Baseball FOMO series, following Seth Rubin’s earlier account of a game between the Mets and Angels. Never leaving a baseball game early is a rule passed down from my father –… Read more »
The Society for American Baseball Research (“SABR”) recently announced the finalists for its 2016 Analytics Conference Research Awards, which “recognize baseball researchers who have completed the best work of original analysis or commentary during the… Read more »
Note: You can listen to Darius discuss this article on Effectively Wild Episode 812 with Ben Lindbergh and Steven Goldman. Roger Kahn’s “The Head Game” is about a series of pitching greats, one of… Read more »
Guests Scott Holland and Tim Livingston join Alex Crisafulli and Eric Roseberry to hold a 3-round draft of some of their favorite ’90s sitcoms. Along the way, they play “Name That Show.”
To diehard fans, leaving a baseball game is seen as a faux pas. “True fans” generally will not leave a game early. However, whether or not some people want to admit it, most have done… Read more »
What’s the single most important offensive statistic? I imagine most of us who have bookmarked Baseball Prospectus would not say batting average or RBIs. A lot of us might pick TAv or OPS+. But neither of… Read more »
Matt Trueblood and Scott Kushner join Brandon Lee to talk about Yoenis Cespedes and other free agent news, Scott’s coaching at Centenary College, and Matt’s contribution to the 2016 Baseball Prospectus Annual. Then they play a BP ’96 player comments guessing game, and list what changes they’d make to MLB.
This baseball movie list was born of a Royals fan’s inability to let the 2014 season end. Watching meaningful and thrilling October baseball for the first time in my life was simply too thrilling to… Read more »
The path Mike Piazza took from a high school first baseman who garnered little interest from colleges to Hall of Famer was an improbable one. Is his story one that could even happen today? Would… Read more »
As I noted a few weeks ago, batters who were at least semi-regulars in both 2014 and 2015 were less effective in 2015 than in 2014, as measured by wRC+. That seemed directionally unsurprising —… Read more »
On November 21st, I set out on a mission across New York City to see if it was possible within 30 days to find strangers, whether tourists or residents of the city, in all 30… Read more »
Last week, we ran Banished to the Pen’s first yearly award polls to select the best of MLB and Effectively Wild in 2015, as voted on by BttP readers and members of the EW Facebook… Read more »
Months of speculation finally became reality Friday evening, as the Washington Nationals traded RHP Drew Storen and cash considerations to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for OF Ben Revere and a Player To Be… Read more »
Barry Gilpin and Darius Austin join Ryan Sullivan to count down the results of our Best of 2015 polls for MLB/Effectively Wild, then talk about the state of the Reds, and an upcoming stateside baseball tour.
This article is focused at the complete novice. If you’re already familiar with cricket, you’ll notice that I’ve greatly simplified a number of things for the sake of brevity. In the past year, I… Read more »
Voting is complete. Visit our results page for the final tallies. Welcome to Banished to the Pen’s Best of 2015 Awards! It was a terrific year of corner-turning, cooler-punching, switch-pitching and the most psychologically… Read more »
The Cincinnati Reds are two years removed from winning 90 games and making the playoffs. In fact, from 2010-2013 the Reds went to the post-season three times in four years, but were never able to get… Read more »
Welcome back to another exciting edition of 1985 vs 2015. Previously in this series, we created a new OOTP game and added the best 4 NL and AL teams from 1985 and 2015. In the… Read more »
