The Yankees have set the record for the greatest Pythagorean Variance by a playoff-qualifying team. The Pythagorean Variance is just a fancy name for a comparison between a teams win/losses and runs scored/runs allowed. The Yankees scored 897 runs and allowed 808 runs. Normally, this would result in about 89 wins, but the Yankees won […]

I was shocked and saddened to learn that former Blue Jay and Tiger John Cerutti has passed away. He had been a color commentator on Blue Jays televison broadcasts for the past 8 seasons. He was 44 years old, and is survived by his wife and 3 children. Cerutti did not have a long career […]

After four straight trips to the playoffs, the Oakland A’s will miss the postseason after dropping the first two games of their three-game series to the Angels. Oakland really faded down the stretch, as their usually outstanding starting pitching let them down. Not today, however, as Barry Zito turned in a very good performance. Today, […]

Yesterday, the Giants won and the Cubs lost. San Francisco is now tied with Houston for the wildcard lead. As Aaron notes, the Cubs and Giants go up against first-place teams this weekend while the Astros play Colorado. This would seem to favor Houston, but weird things have been happening this week. Speaking of which, […]

The Padres beat the Giants 4-3 in ten innings last night, hurting the Giants’ chances for the wildcard. A lot of the coverage has focused on the game-ending play, in which Dustan Mohr made a questionable judgement call catching a foul fly ball (and subsequently hurting his knee). But that wasn’t the key play of […]

Houston has jumped into the lead in the NL wildcard race, and Angels now have sole possesion of first place in the AL West. In addition to updating the division race graphs daily, we’ve added a National League wildcard graph on the Team page, which illustrates the great comeback that Houston has made.

The Mets are supposed to announce today or tomorrow that they have hired Omar Minaya to be head of baseball operations, with Jim Duquette moving to more of an administrative role. Minaya worked for the Mets for several years before taking the front office job with the Expos. Minaya is a good baseball man. But […]

At the beginning of the month, I wasn’t sure there would be much drama in the pennant races. Boy, was I wrong. The Angels are now tied for first with the A’s, and the NL wildcard race is going down to the wire, with the Cubs, Giants and Astros pretty much on top of each […]

All stats and graphs are now current through games of September 23rd. In the American League, Johan Santana is now tied with Gary Sheffield for most Win Shares Above Average, and he’s making a legitimate claim for the MVP title. In the National, Barry Bonds now has 51 Win Shares — only the tenth time […]

If the Cubs win 9 of their last 11 games, they’re the wildcard winner, no matter what their rivals do. If the Giants win 8 of their remaining games, they’re in the playoffs. Same with the Dodgers. And yet, there will be only one wildcard winner. Confused? I was too, until the Cub Reporter explained […]