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 …
Quick note: I’ll be chatting today at Baseball Prospectus at 3 PM Eastern. Stop by and drop off a question if you’ve got one. Injuries are an inevitable part of baseball. Last Friday’s Hit List noted the absences of the likes of big-name players like Alfonso Soriano, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols, John Smoltz, Rafael Furcal …
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 …
Things are suddenly looking a bit more sunny for the Yankees. In this week’s Hit List, I had this to say: A dismal week for the Yankees ends on a high note with the return of Alex Rodriguez (4-for-11 with two doubles and two homers after a 17-game absence) and strong performances from Darrell Rasner …
The great sportswriter Leo Tolstoy once observed that all unhappy teams are unhappy in their own way, and so it was with New York’s two baseball teams as this weekend’s Subway Series arrived. The series always generates a lot of hype in NYC, but with the two teams dealing with inner turmoil while playing mediocre …
Continue reading ‘The Subpar Subway Series and Its Sub Rosa Subplots’ »
Through thick and thin over the past few years, even as their pitching and middle relief has gotten shakier, the one thing you could always rely upon was the Yankee offense. During the Joe Torre era, the team averaged 896 runs per year, 5.53 per game, with last year’s 968 (5.98 per game) topping them …
• God, what a wretched week for the Yankees. As summarized in this week’s Hit List. Big Hurts: the Yankees lose Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, Brian Bruney and Philip Hughes to injuries in the same week. Both Posada and A-Rod are gone after wavering between the bench and the lineup, likely prolonging their absence, and …
Continue reading ‘Clearing the Bases — Late Friday Dead Horse Flog Edition’ »
Busy day: • A Prospectus Hit List to go with Wednesday’s Hit and Run piece on struggling rotations, with special focus on the current Tigers and the historically awful Rangers, with an aside about the Yankees’ failure to get innings from their starting five (5.07 per start). • a spot on the Rotowire Fantasy Sports …
This week’s Hit List was composed amid a hangover of sorts brought on by Wednesday night’s Yankees-Red Sox match, an interminable 15-9 win for the Yanks that lasted four hours and eight minute. Four-hour affairs aren’t really my bag any more — I routinely avoid Yankees-Orioles games like telemarketers phoning at dinner time — and …
Bleary-eyed but satisfied, I’ve got a two-fer today in the form of my first New York Sun piece of the year, and the first regular-season Hit List (both of which are free as opposed to subscriber-only). The Sun piece is about the absurd glut of young talent in the NL West, which figures to be …