This weekend, Ken Rosenthal wrote a column in which he discussed the fact that St. Louis will be starting 22-year-old Yadier Molina at catcher. Rosenthal quoted an AL GM as asking, “How many teams have ever won a World Series with a 22-year-old catcher?” The question is clearly rhetorical, implying that it’s pretty difficult for […]

News always seems to travel slowly when it comes to amateur baseball, so a decision last month by IBAF (the governing body for international baseball) escaped my eye until just now. It seems that both the U.S. and Canada will be given a last-minute shot to qualify again for the 2005 World Cup. This is […]

I have some brief thoughts on Barry Zito over at Batter’s Box, nothing conclusive in any way but it got me to thinking what THT’s readers think of his chances to bounce back. If anyone who saw a lot of Barry Zito last year has an opinion on his disappointing 2004 and his prospects for […]

Tangotiger has released his projections for 2005 batting and pitching stats, based on a system he calls “Marcel,” because it’s so simple that even a monkey could do it (remember Ross and Marcel?). If I recall correctly, Tango basically blends each player’s previous experience 5/4/3/2 for hitters, and 3/2/1/2 for pitchers, where the first three […]

Last year, David Pinto published a “probabilistic model of range” — one of the most sophisticated zone-based analyses of fielding around. Similar to MGL’s Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), it calculates how well each fielder got to balls hit in specific zones, compared to the major league average for each zone. MGL isn’t publishing his UZR […]

I’ve improved my DIPS worksheets to now include HR, BB & SO Park Factors for every season since 1969, thanks to Retrosheet. Enjoy!

We’ve created a new addendum to the Hardball Times Annual. This addendum corrects some discrepancies we found in the individual fielding stats. You can download the addendum (as a PDF file) from our Book page. Be sure to periodically drop by the Book Page to check for new updates.

Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were elected to the Hall of Fame today, two very deserving inductions. Goose Gossage and Bert Blyleven, two very deserving players, received 55% and 41%, respectively. Jim Rice and Andre Dawson, also good candidates for the Hall, both received over 40% of the vote. For reasons I can’t fathom, Bruce […]

Rich Lederer has made it a personal crusade to get Bert Blyleven voted into the Hall of Fame. It’s a worthy crusade, and Rich has invested a lot of personal energy to give the man the credit he deserves. Rich has been rewarded for his obsession with a fine interview with Blyleven, including a great […]

The death toll from the Indian Ocean Earthquake and tsunami continues to rise and may very well reach over 80,000 lives. Obviously, this is a terrible tragedy that overshadows anything we might say about baseball. If you can afford it, please consider donating financial relief to these devastated areas. Here is a list of relief […]