Terry Francona may be out as manager of the Red Sox as early as today so reports a lot of people with sources. I for one would be very happy if the Cubs targeted him as their manager. He’s one of the best in the game. He might be the best. Terry Francona may depart as manager of the Boston …
Series Preview: Tampa Bay Rays (91-71) at Texas Rangers (96-66)
I’m going to write my usual previews for each of the playoff series. I’ll say flat out that I don’t follow the AL at all, so any of you Rays fans who aren’t still in a daze should feel free to chime in with comments/inevitable corrections to anything I say here. Before we get to the Rays, let’s stop and …
That's Baseball
As Ron Santo always liked to say: That’s baseball. Congratulations to the Rays and Cardinals. If the postseason is only 4.38% as exciting as last night was, it’s going to be a great one.
Caution: Falling Wild Card Teams
As of last night’s games, the American League Wild Card standings are all tied up and the National League Wild Card standings are separated by a single game with two days remaining in the regular season. This is exciting for baseball fans no matter the circumstances, but these particular close races were not always so. The Red Sox are heading …
Congratulations to the Milwaukee Brewers
With the Cubs 5-1 win over the Cardinals yesterday, the Milwaukee Brewers won their first division title since the days of Harvey’s Wallbangers. Kudos to the Brewers front office for going all in for this season when it was clear their window was closing. Congratulations to everyone on that team. Except Ryan Braun. Hopefully Prince Fielder will bring a World …
Carl Crawford's 2011 Season
One of the running jokes around here is that I hate Carl Crawford. Really, I don’t. And I don’t take greater than usual glee in his disappointing season (at least, above seeing the Red Sox lose). It all stems from this article I wrote back in February complaining about the near-universal acclaim for the 7/$132m deal that he signed with …
On Mariano Rivera's fWAR and rWAR
I know that ACT, myself and another person (sorry for not remembering who) had a discussion awhile back on Mariano Rivera‘s rWAR. I had asked Tango about it and he explained the difficulty we were having in getting the same numbers thatn Baseball Reference has. There’s a big difference between his fWAR and rWAR and Tango explains why. Obviously the …
Bud Selig is Mad Everyone Knows He's an Unfeeling Asshole
Bud Selig is none too happy with the Mets. Apparently, Bud wanted to deny them the ability to wear NYPD, NYFD, and other first responders’ hats in favor of the the MLB sanctioned hats (which are on sale now, by the way!) and have them just shut up and do what he said. It was, I guess, wrong of the …
WAR And Salsa
A lot of discussion started yesterday about WAR thanks a very thoughtful article on It’s About The Money, Stupid. Discussion followed in two article on The Book Blog (here and here) and then on Replacement Level Baseball Blog. I’ve mostly been ignoring the defense part of WAR for some time now. Ever since Colin Wyers showed how useless those metrics …
Can't think of a stupid title yet so this is obviously not finished
A lot of negative attention has been given to Tom Ricketts re-signing Oneri Fleita for 4 years. A lot more negative attention will be given when Ricketts re-signs Tim Wilken. My first thought when I heard about the signing was that it was odd. Immediatley after that I realized we’re talking about an inconsequential amount of money so firing them, …