America’s love affair with the 2014 American League Champion Kansas CIty Royals began with that intense Wild Card game vs the Oakland Athletics. Unfortunately for Royals fans, it ended too soon with Alex Gordon standing on 3rd base in a Game 7 loss to the San Francisco Giants. Most people will remember the Royals as the… Continue reading Hot Start in the Heart of America

Every year, players have hot starts.  A player from the minor leagues will take advantage of the league not having a book on him yet.  An old face in a new place will rekindle lightning in a bottle for a series or two.  There are hot starts, and then there is the core of the… Continue reading A Titanic Start For Adrian Gonzalez

It’s never too early to judge how well a player is performing. Never. Players on new teams tend to be judged far more harshly, as the pressure to impress fans quickly mounts. One bad series can turn into a prolonged slump in the blink of an eye, and while that isn’t always the case, it’s… Continue reading Off to a Fast Start: 6 Players Already Having An Impact On New Teams

Baseball has embraced data and analytics in its decision making, This approach is often referred to as Moneyball, largely in reference to what Billy Beane was doing with the 2002 Oakland Athletics. Beane’s Moneyball was not exactly the core of much of his personnel decision-making process. He chose to look at the margins of the game… Continue reading Analytics and Roster Construction: The Case of the Phillies and the Indians

When my grandfather turned 80, he went from mildly crabby to a full-fledged curmudgeon.  He was always happy to tell you what he thought of you or fall asleep in the middle of a story he found particularly uninteresting.  Unlike getting old enough to not give a crap, it seems that an induction into the Hall… Continue reading Bert Blyleven Takes A Cheap Shot At Detroit

In the first of what is hopefully many hilarious gaffes, Adrian Beltre set the gold standard for completely forgetting about baseball’s new rules.  Beltre took a quick step out of the box to smack his cleats with his bat, maybe reassess the situation, when the umpire let him know he better get back in the… Continue reading Adrian Beltre Doesn’t Understand the New Pace of Play Rules Either

A long winter of change has finally come to an end and many teams look entirely unrecognizable from last September. Perhaps the most talked about teams during the offseason have been the San Diego Padres, Chicago White Sox, and the Seattle Mariners. The Marlins and Padres undertook almost complete roster overhauls. The Mariners and the White Sox did enough… Continue reading Mariners, White Sox, Padres Take Different Paths to Contending Now

Baseball is back and what a great time of year it is. Fire up your grills and get ready to consume as much baseball as possible this spring and summer. Just to keep the fun going, let’s take a look at very early predictions for the AL and NL award winners. Manager of the Year… Continue reading MLB Award Predictions

In the first installment, we discussed two core sabermetric principles that are key to looking at the game differently Run Expectancy and Linear Weights. RE24 and linear weights are not stats in themselves, but they are the building blocks to a lot of what sabermetric thought entails. The idea that the game of baseball can be… Continue reading Sabermetrics 101: Understanding FIP and BABIP

We all know about Kris Bryant’s impressive Spring Training that had all of Major League Baseball buzzing. However, there are several other players that also had excellent numbers this spring. Though it may not be an automatic guarantee for regular season success, a younger player’s big Spring Training can potentially mean that they’ve turned the… Continue reading Break Out: 5 Young Players Poised To Have Big 2015 Seasons