The number one overall pick in the 2009, Stephen Strasburg, signed for a record bonus just hours before the signing deadline. Although he missed the regular minor league season he has been throwing for the Phoenix Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League. Much has been made of his triple-digit fastball and mind boggling numbers […]

To anyone who cares, I just started my own blog based on my upcoming book, “Evaluating Baseball’s Managers, 1876-2008“. Original thinker that I am, the blog is called Evaluating Baseball’s Managers. The blog’s opening statement to the world is here. It’s primarily to create awareness for my new book (hence the unoriginal title). It won’t […]

Ken Griffey Jr. is returning for what figures to be his swan song, a second straight season in Seattle that figures to see him serve strictly off the bench. Junior is receiving a $2 million base salary with incentives that could bring in another million. Some are stunned that general manager Jack Zduriencik would make […]

Over the last couple years, and mitigated by the recent press over the issue, draft pick compensation has become a major, major part of the free agent market — to the point where it is being overvalued. As a brief refresher, free agents are assigned one of three categories: Type A, Type B and unranked. […]

I’m not going to single anyone out, since we’re all guilty of abusing FanGraphs’ Wins Above Replacement metric. But I’ve been seeing cases pop up where it’s getting out of hand. So I’ve set up a few guidelines for how to go about using WAR responsibly. Do not break these rules, or I may call […]

There are some players in free agency who won’t get as much ink as the higher-end players. No matter where they end up, Matt Holliday, Jason Bay and John Lackey will draw the most attention. But what about those middle- to low-tier free agents that figure to be in demand by many teams? Just because […]

Since the Elias rankings were back-calculated last year by Eddie Bajek of Tigers Thoughts, there should be less excitement regarding the release the the Elias free agent compensation rankings. There was a whole lot of outrage two seasons ago, and still a little last season, when the rankings were released. Orlando Hudson a type-B last […]

Just thought some out there in reader-land might be interested to know that Sean Forman of Baseball-Reference.com is doing a user survey to improve his site. If you have the time and inclination, click here to take the survey.

I will continue to look at potential impact rookies for 2010 today with Indians right-handed pitcher Carlos Carrasco. Carrasco came over to Cleveland from Philadelphia as part of the Cliff Lee trade this past season. The 22-year old Venezuelan native entered the 2009 season as one of the top pitching prospects in the minors. He […]

Today, all the cool kids are ranking Yankee title winners, so I thought I would, too. Since it’s being done by others, there’s no sense in making it a full article, so I’ll just dump it in THT Live. I use league strength as a secondary factor, which is arguably the least honest way of […]