In this panoramic photograph taken on Oct. 24, 1913 (from the Library of Congress), a proud world champion Philadelphia Athletics team looks out at the camera having just defeated the New York Giants four games to one. Connie Mack at center stage looks beyond impressive—tall, dapper and still young—and out of uniform, naturally. The old-time […]

According to Baseball-Reference.com, the Toronto Blue Jays have lost 2,709 games in franchise history. There have been more important losses, more heart-rending losses, and more memorable losses, but none of losses were quite as lamely filtered away as one that came 10,000 days ago today. After nine innings, they battled the Orioles to a 4-4 […]

Estimating a player’s defensive value is quite difficult. I know, I know—duh. BUT, I would venture to say that it’s a tad bit easier to estimate a catcher’s defensive value compared to other positions. At least, most of it. There are, of course, certain aspects of a catcher’s impact behind the plate that we can […]

Today, Bert Blyleven finally got recognized for being the great pitcher he was. It took fourteen years, but it’s always better late than never. Congratulations, Bert. In the long, traditional and tainted history of baseball, you will find few players who were as good as Bert Blyleven. A pitcher who spent 86% of his career […]

Well, the results for the BBWAA vote for the Hall of Fame just came out. Congratulations to Roberto Alomar and Rich Lederer, er, I mean – congrats to Alomar and Bert Blyleven. They’re the newest Hall of Famers. This means something extra special to me because I wrote a column predicting how the vote would […]

Normally I’m not one to pick on any BBWAA member for their ballots. Part of the great thing about Cooperstown debates is that there are so many different ways you can tackle the question of who deserves enshrinement. How do you balance peak, prime, and career value? How much do you emphasize pitching or fielding […]

Tyler Kepner has a piece up today about Jack Morris’ qualifications for the Hall of Fame. I don’t buy Kepner’s arguments, but he makes the best case he can while also acknowledging the many negatives against Morris. Kepner presumably would have a vote if the New York Times let him, but there is that conflict […]

15,000 days ago, a pretty big off-season trade occurred: one that featured two arguably Hall of Fame-caliber players (though neither is in Cooperstown), a Cy Young winner, and a few other notables: The Cleveland Indians traded starting pitcher Luis Tiant and swingman pitcher Stan Williams to the Twins for Dean Chance, Bob Miller, Graig Nettles, […]

Jeff Pearlman has a column up today in which he suggests that Jeff Bagwell doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame because, even if he didn’t take steroids, he should have blown the whistle on those who did. Full disclosure: I haven’t read the column and I don’t plan to. The premise makes me cringe. […]

Today is the first of a three-day winter baseball event, the International Power Showcase. The top 99 high school hitters will gather in Chase Field the next three days to display their power hitting prowess with metal and wood bats. Greg Rybarczyk, of Hit Tracker Online, will be providing the distance estimates, and you’ll be […]