By now, you’ve probably heard about the trade that went down late last night between the Yankees and the Braves. The deal sent Javier Vazquez to New York, and center fielder Melky Cabrera, relief pitcher Mike Dunn, and pitching prospect Arodys Vizcaino to the Braves, along with $500K. As with the trade from a few […]

For the last several years, it’s been thought that the American League is a breaking pitch league — that is, the caliber of hitters in the AL dictate that fastballs should be relied on less. If you are a fastball hitter, you want to go to the National League where you can dominate. On the […]

Well, it’s official. The Washington Nationals will take baseball by storm and make the playoffs in 2010 now that they’ve inked starting pitcher Jason Marquis. Why do I say that? Because Jason Marquis’ team has been in the playoffs every year of his career — 10 straight seasons. Marquis is a Winner™ and you best […]

John Dewan recently read the 2010 THT Annual on a plane trip and here’s what he had to say: I recently had a chance to sit down with The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 and was completely captivated by the quality writing and analysis it contains. I cannot recommend a book more highly than this […]

So how much better was the non-tender class from 2009 versus 2008 and 2007? Here are your teams, folks: 2007: C Miguel Olivo 1B Jason Lane 2B Aaron Miles 3B Morgan Ensberg SS Adam Everett LF Kevin Mench CF Willie Harris RF Emil Brown SP Mark Hendrickson SP Mark Prior RP Brendan Donnelly RP Chad […]

With the additions of Cliff Lee, Chone Figgins and “Meltdown” Bradley, there’s been a surge in Mariners hype. Those who aren’t quite ready to hand them the AL West crown point to their weak offense. Here’s a look at that offense via the Rank-o-meter. Even with the additions of Figgins and Bradley, the Rank-o-meter shows […]

Last year, the Mariners scored 3.95 runs per game. The rest of the league scored 4.89. Unless Safeco grew a hundred feet in every direction and the Mariners spotted their opponents five extra outfielders, that ain’t just a park effect. Obviously, something had to be done. Fortunately, you didn’t have to look far to find […]

Larry Stone of the Seattle Times first reported that Milton Bradley, who will go down in Cubs infamy, has been swapped to the Seattle Mariners for starting pitcher Carlos Silva. Like Bradley, Silva will go down in M’s infamy as one of the last disastrous moves made by former GM Bill Bavasi… except that Silva’s […]

Is anyone else having a hard time figuring out the market for Matt Holliday? He’s the top free agent on the market this offseason but teams are being noticeably frugal in their spending. Few teams seem interested in paying anyone the $100 million or more that Scott Boras seems to think Holliday is worth. For […]

Take it away, CHONE: PlayerInningsERARARMike Gonzalez493.675Brandon Lyon643.666Rafael Soriano523.296Billy Wagner373.415 So the Red Sox trade for Billy Wagner, with Wagner agreeing on the condition that they not pick up his option. However, he allows them to offer him arbitration, apparently not understanding how type-A status will put him in the Juan Cruz class. Well, the Braves […]