In 2009, the Kansas City Royals were an offensive monstrosity. The club ranked second-to-last in the American League in runs scored, while also placing second from the bottom in walk rate. Once you consider park factors, the Royals fielded the worst lineup in the Junior Circuit. The Seattle Mariners plated fewer runs, but the M’s […]

Randy Johnson’s retirement prompted me to create this word cloud. It shows all his strikeout victims over the years, with larger fonts indicating higher strikeout totals. While Ricky Henderson leads the way with 30 K’s, Dean Palmer’s 25 strikeouts are more atrocious considering he had 42 at bats against Johnson. Sort of fun to scan […]

I believe my introduction is allowed to be unrelated to baseball, so I submit the funniest YouTube clip I saw today. It’s real and it’s spectacular. As for baseball, Dan Shaughnessy, scourged by the taint of Sullivan Patrick. Or something like that. I’m not so good at the phrases of turning. And TSJC at RAB […]

Jonathan Papelbon wants what he’s got coming. The Red Sox closer told ESPN Boston‘s Gordon Edes: I’m not afraid to show that, hey, I want to be with the Red Sox [in a multiyear deal]. I’d love to have that sense of security of being with a team and knowing, ‘Hey, they want me, and […]

Andre Dawson is in the Hall of Fame. I’m glad for him, he deserves it, even though a few superior players fell short and will have to wait to get in. Dawson debuted in 1976, the same year as Dale Murphy, and two years after Fred Lynn. All three were at times great players, gold […]

*Initial note: I’m a Mets fan. Bias is inevitable. As talk surrounding the Hall of Fame swirls, I thought it would be interesting to look ahead to 2012, when (barring some amazing comeback/terrible voting/Mayan-predicted apocalypse) Mike Piazza will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The case is pretty clear cut, and the only question […]

For the third straight year, I made my fearless (or is it brainless?) predictions for how the BBWAA vote would go. Now that the vote is in, let’s see how I did: Name BBWAA Me Dif. Andre Dawson 78 84 6 Bert Byleven 74 73 1 Robeto Alomar 74 82 8 Jack Morris 52 51 […]

Andre Dawson was elected to the Hall of Fame today, with 78% of the vote. Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar just missed making it. You can can read the full voting tally at the BBWAA site. Dawson and Blyleven both added about ten percentage points to their totals from last year’s vote; Alomar was on […]

On this day in 1912, New Mexico was admitted as the 47th U.S. state. And in 1848, Samuel Morse first successfully tested the electrical telegraph. Yay for history. In other news…. Beyond the Box Score is seeking your input for their 2009 sabermetric writing awards. Nominations will be over the next few days, and then […]

After much discussion in the blogosphere and elsewhere, Matt Holliday signed a seven year, $119 million contract to return to the St. Louis Cardinals today. Holliday was courted by the…well, we’re not exactly sure who courted Holliday prior to signing with the Cards. We know that Boston offered Holliday a five year, $82.5 million contract […]