Back from my late winter summer trip to Salt Lake City and Wyoming, where I nearly froze my ass off while backpacking in the Wind Rivers range once again. After three days of chilly weather and occasional odd snow flurries that melted the moment they hit the ground, I awoke to a snow-covered forest floor …
One of the saving graces of writing about baseball from an analytical perspective is that something that might rip your heart out as a fan — say, the brazen stupidity of Dodger GM Ned Colletti or the failure of Alex Rodriguez in the clutch, with the Yankees’ season more or less on the line — …
Sorry, it’s been slow around here given that my iMac G5 20″ has been in its death throes for the past week, leaving me to write on my laptop and sweat bullets over the fate of my data, 99% of which was successfully retrieved (not to be confused with a hard drive of mine that …
Today’s Prospectus Hit and Run is on Park-Adjusted Team Defense, a topic I’ve broached before: For those in need of a refresher course, PADE is Baseball Prospectus alum James Click’s method for bringing park effects to bear upon Bill James’ Defensive Efficiency (DE) rate, which tells us how often a team turns a batted ball …
Hello, friends. I know it’s been ages since I weighed in here, possibly the longest between-postings hiatus in the history of this site. In the hours following the trading deadline, my kidneys shut down while struggling to process the Manny Ramirez-to-L.A. deal deal. It had already been a rough year for this bicoastal fan, what …
Three pieces of Prospectus-flavored content to note here, an average of one for each manager fired this week (Willie Randolph, Seattle’s John McLaren, and Toronto’s John Gibbons). With apologies to Bill Bavasi… • First off, here’s the transcript from Tuesday’s chat as well as a few slices: Dan (windowless office): Should we ignore the Hit …
Friday’s Hit List featured my two teams personifying mediocrity, ranked at the middle of the pack at #15 (Yankees) and #16 (Dodgers). Neither has been a whole lot of fun to watch lately. The Dodgers have been minus Rafael Furcal for about a month now. They were 18-14 with him, as he got off to …
I was pretty excited when over the weekend I learned that I’d have to bypass seeing one of my favorite bands, the Waco Brothers, because I held tickets to Tuesday night’s Yankees game, a matchup between the Blue Jays and Yanks that would pit Joba Chamberlain in his long-awaited first major-league start, against Toronto ace …
Wednesday was a big day here at Futility Central. In addition to doing three radio hits in a 24-hour span on topics as diverse as fantasy duds (XM’s Rotowire Fantasy Sports Hour with Chris Liss), the impact of maple bats on baseball’s scoring levels (XM’s MLB preview show with Mike Ferrin) and the exciting debut …
The second installment of my historical take on recently deceased former executive Buzzie Bavasi is now up at Baseball Prospectus. It’s even longer than the first part, covering not only the Dodgers’ 1960s heyday — Sandy Koufax’s prime — but also his tenures with the Padres and the Angels. At one point, I was sure …