Hall of Fame Nobody was elected to the Hall of Fame yesterday. It wasn’t that surprising based on Repoz’s collection of the ballots published online, but still frustrating. The New York Times covered the front page of the sports with this instant classic. It will only be more difficult to get into the Hall of Fame now that so many …
Colin Wyers on the Hall of Fame electing no one
Colin Wyers wrote an excellent article for Baseball Prospectus in response to the BBWAA not electing a single player on a ballot that had more than 10 qualified Hall of Famers. the Hall is dedicated to preserving history, honoring excellence and connecting generations of baseball fans. The debate over the latest slate of players focuses on the second point, and …
The 2013 Hall of Fame class and the Keltner List
Over a year ago I applied the Keltner List test to Sammy Sosa and figured I’d do the same thing for most of the eligible candidates just for fun. Bill James came up with the Keltner List back in 1985 and I’ll let Wiki explain. The Keltner list is a systematic but non-numerical method for determining whether a baseball player …
Nelson Perez performs in the DWL
Nelson Perez, essentially a non-prospect, tore up the DWL. Good for him, I guess? Pretty hard to get jazzed about .732 OPS AA LF repeaters who are 25, but nice to see.
Baseball America’s Cubs Top 10 is out, is interesting
First things first, here is the top 10 list BA has given for the Cubs this year. 1. Javier Baez, SS This is basically a unanimous projection. There’s an outside case for Albert Almora or Jorge Soler, but neither has the upside of Baez, and he also had the best minors season of the 3 also. No surprise here. I’d …
Nick Cafardo on the Cubs and a Matt Garza non-rumor
MLBTR led to me this article by Nick Cafardo, which talks a bit about the Cubs. “We’re certainly farther along than we were last year at this time,” said Epstein. “When we got here, we identified one core player [Starlin Castro] and now we can look around and see Anthony Rizzo, Darwin Barney, Jeff Samardzija , and others. We do …
How many games will the 2013 Cubs win?
Over at The Cub Contrarian, Kyle used an estimated WAR for players to get a team win total. I thought I'd do the same thing, but I'm going to do it two ways: projections and my wild ass guesses. Wild Ass Guess Catchers: Welington Castillo (1.0), Dioner Navarro (negative infinity) I could easily see Castillo being a 2 WAR player, …
Muskat: Work in progress, but Cubs aim to be competitive
I saw the title of this article a couple days ago, but didn't bother reading it. I don't believe the Cubs have attempted to be competitive in the short term in any way whatsoever so the title made me laugh. I thought I'd answer the questions just for fun. 1. Are Matt Garza, Scott Baker and Arodys Vizcaino healthy? Yes. …
Copying what other sucky team’s bloggers do
Having difficulty thinking of something to write about, I decided to look to other bloggers for teams that suck for ideas. The first idea came from a Royals blog that was comparing all the starters at each position in the division. Previous positions: Catcher We'll go around the diamond so 1st base is next. The starters for the NL Central …
Tommy John Surgery, The Hardball Times Annual and Scott Baker
I got the Kindle version of The Hardball Times annual for my birthday and the first thing I wanted to read was the article about Tommy John surgery. It looked at whether pitchers get back to the level they were at pre-surgery and when that is. They also looked at what the shelf life is for a pitcher who had …