The Tampa Bay Rays are maybe the premier model for the sustained success of a very small-market team in MLB today, and they got there with Wall Street maneuvering by smart, urbane men. Jonah Keri… Read more »
I am a firm believer that, when it comes to free-agent draft-pick compensation, teams worry too much. They sweat the small stuff. Draft picks are so undefined, so fraught with posssibility, that often, executives seem… Read more »
The Arizona Diamondbacks signed Cody Ross to a three-year deal Saturday, adding him to a roster that now features some six or seven viable big-league outfielders. Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers said that when the deal… Read more »
If you don’t subscribe to Bill James Online, get on it. It sets you back just three bucks a month, and although James doesn’t write articles as often as you dream he will, what he… Read more »
With Christmas come and gone and so much movement having already happened this Hot Stove season in MLB, the four most prominent remaining free agents are Michael Bourn, Adam LaRoche, Kyle Lohse and Rafael Soriano…. Read more »
Ned Colletti is the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the suddenly gluttonous, indiscriminate player-acquisition machine that is taking over Major League Baseball. Skip Schumaker just became Colletti’s newest play thing. This is bad… Read more »
The Chicago Cubs elected not to tender contracts to Ian Stewart, Jaye Chapman or Zach Putnam Friday, making all three free agents and clearing three slots on the team’s 40-man roster headed into next week’s… Read more »
Pitchers are more malleable than positional talent. Every MLB scouting director, GM and minor-league manager has a dozen names in his head at any given time, guys he wants to get his hands on. Some… Read more »
Mark Reynolds took one for a team full of players just like him prior to the 2011 season. New Arizona Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers dealt Reynolds as part of an effort to correct the 2010… Read more »
The Atlanta Braves don’t often undervalue their major-league assets. When they decided to trade Tommy Hanson to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Friday for Jordan Walden, it was a fairly stinging indictment of Hanson’s… Read more »
Of the six or seven major potential prizes in MLB free agency this winter, B.J. Upton probably presents the most uncertainty. That statement is more loaded than it seems, too. Upton plays the outfield. He’s a… Read more »
Darwin Barney played 156 games at second base for the 2012 Chicago Cubs, took the plate 588 times, and had a .299 on-base percentage. Of his 37 extra-base hits, only seven cleared the fence. He… Read more »
The Miami Marlins traded five players to the Toronto Blue Jays Tuesday, in a 12-player blockbuster highlighted by Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle. In making the deal, Miami unburdened itself of $160 million or so… Read more »
Miguel Cabrera took home the 2012 American League MVP award Thursday, edging out Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout. Cabrera’s Detroit Tigers made the playoffs. Cabrera won the Triple Crown by leading the league in… Read more »
I considered a long and winding opus, an essay that considers the mega deal between Alex Anthopoulos’s Toronto Blue Jays and the Miami Marlins existentially and socially, as well as in on-field terms. It fizzled… Read more »
When Sergio Romo struck out Miguel Cabrera to finish the 2012 World Series and make champions of the San Francisco Giants, Buster Posey raced out to the mound for the first of the embraces. Brandon Belt… Read more »
Josh Hamilton is a long way from finding a new home, but Josh Roenicke has one. Michael Bourn is still feeling out the market, but Mike Aviles has been traded twice in a fortnight. The offseason is… Read more »
Dan Haren had no control over his fate as Friday night stretched into Saturday morning on the East Coast. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Chicago Cubs came together, then shoved apart on… Read more »
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a team very much in transition, declined to make a qualifying offer of $13.3 million for one year to their right fielder, Torii Hunter Friday night, allowing Hunter to… Read more »
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement in Major League Baseball is in full effect for the first time this winter, at least as it pertains to free agency and other machinations of the league’s offseason. One… Read more »
The Los Angeles Dodgers signed impending free-agent relief pitcher Brandon League to a three-year, $22.5-million contract with a vesting option for 2016, according to Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times. He figures to be their… Read more »
How unheralded was Brian Harper, who played 16 seasons in the Major Leagues and batted .295? How underrated was he? Well, ask yourself: Who were the five best catchers in baseball from 1989-93? According to… Read more »
You knew magic was in the air in San Francisco Thursday night, when Tim McCarver opened his early comments on Madison Bumgarner with the observation that Bumgarner’s nickname was MadBum. Aside from sounding like a… Read more »
Jacques Barzun, perhaps the most famous and accomplished cultural historian to date, died Thursday night at 104 years old, according to The New York Times. Barzun was by no means a man to be remembered… Read more »
I blogged about Game 1 of the 2012 World Series once already, so I’ll keep this brief. A few things spring to mind as I replay the game in my head. 1. The Three Stooges… Read more »
Pablo Sandoval hit three home runs and the hardest single of the night in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series Wednesday, as the San Francisco Giants beat the Detroit Tigers and Justin Verlander 8-3…. Read more »
Ryan Vogelsong, Marco Scutaro and Barry (Rally) Zito will live forever in the hearts of San Francisco Giants fans, but most baseball fans will remember the 2012 NLCS as a rival to the 1997 World… Read more »
The next two weeks will see the end of the transition year in Major League Baseball. Once the World Series ends, the last vestige of the old collective bargaining agreement will be swept away, and… Read more »
See, that’s not nice. I shouldn’t use that title. I suspect Buster Olney, whose writing (if not baseball analysis acumen) I esteem highly, did a great job on a book of the same name, but… Read more »
Wednesday and Thursday each gave us the thrill of four playoff games and 12 hours of engrossment. It couldn’t last. (Thank goodness for that small favor, by the way, because I’ve written nearly 8,000 words… Read more »
