Hey, I just got an email from a producer of ESPN’s SportsNation. Turns out we’re going to be a featured site on the show today, which airs at 4 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN2. We’ll be handing out autographed team photos after the show.

Heading into the 2010 season, the San Diego Padres were expected to rank among the bottom tier of National League ball clubs. The most prominent question surrounding the Friars was not, “will they contend?” but rather “where’s Adrian Gonzalez headed?” Yet, improbably, the Padres sit atop the NL West standings with a 51-37 record. San […]

White Sox 15, Royals 5: Ladies and gentlemen: your first place Chicago White Sox.  Chicago has made up 10 games since June 9th, going from 9.5 out to .5 up. Without question, the most unexpected surge of the year. Yes, they had help from the Twins and, to a lesser extent, the Tigers’ poor play, […]

Fernando Rodney throws a change-up against the Dodgers on June 13, 2010. (Icon/SMI) On Friday night, Rob Neyer tweeted the following, “Fernando Rodney supposedly throws a palm ball. Is he the only one?” I knew Trevor Hoffman threw the palm ball, but I wasn’t sure about Fernando Rodney or anyone else. I did a bit […]

Yesterday, I analyzed Cliff Lee’s prospective ERA over/under projection for the rest of the season. Now, it’s time to take a look at Cliff Lee’s prospective WHIP. In my ERA analysis, I pegged Cliff Lee for 105 innings for the rest of the season (15 starts with an average of 7.0 innings per outing). Further, […]

Yesterday’s Cliff Lee trade raised the prospect of an interesting dilemma for Major League Baseball. All-Star Game rosters are devised with the requirement that each team (even the Orioles) gets one representative. Lee is an all-star; when rosters were selected, he was a Mariner, and now he’s a Ranger. Now, the dilemma isn’t immediate. We […]

Earlier today, in the wake of the Cliff Lee trade, I took a look at what Cliff Lee’s 2010 season would look like as a Ranger. I concluded his first half ERA would be slightly higher, at 2.49 (versus his current 2.34 mark), while his second half would still be a solid 3.13 all whilst […]

MLB Trade Rumors, is reporting that the Rangers have just completed a deal with which send them stud SP Cliff Lee and injured (and out for the season) RP Mark Lowe from the Mariners in exchange for Justin Smoak and three other prospects (RHP Josh Leuke, 2B Matthe Lawson and RHP Blake Beaven). From an […]

Here is the newest THT_Graphical_Report. I plan to publish these weekly. I’ve increased the resolution of the graphs and added some comments to each one. Please let me know what you think of this week’s version in the comments below.

Happy Friday everyone. After a long week and a hard-earned paycheck, let’s take a look at who’s earning their paychecks in MLB. PayScale plots prorated salary (Y axis) against WAR (X axis) and uses a rough baseline of $4.5M per win as “fair compensation.” Players which a higher $/win are classified as overpaid, while players […]