Besides being Bill Mueller’s birthday, March 17 is also my birthday. In honor of my having survived another 365 days (along with Mueller), here’s a list of some of the top players born on March 17 (courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, and in random order): Mueller, of course (the 2003 AL batting champ) Hank Sauer (1952 NL […]

Tom Glavine’s wife says of her husband, “Mentally, he’s a Met now.” Is this a good thing? The Mets party line is that Glavine’s going to have a bounce-back season in 2004, but I don’t buy it. His strikeout rate is dangerously low (4.03 per 9 innings), and he’s 38 years old. Will he reach […]

With Jon Lieber sidelined with a groin problem, the current Yankees fifth starter is none other than Donovan Osborne. Yeah, the old Cardinals pitcher from the mid-’90s. Osborne hasn’t topped 100 innings since 1996, and he’s pitched just 16 innings (with a 6.19 ERA) this millennium. Lieber should be back early enough that Osborne won’t […]

ESPN.com reported earlier today (or yesterday, if you’re on the East Coast, or reading this on Tuesday rather than Monday) that the A’s are about to sign Eric Chavez to a six-year, $66 million extension. I think this is a nice deal for Oakland. At 26, Chavez is just entering his prime, and he’s been […]

Looks like the Mexican fans weren’t too happy with the nine-inning tie the Marlins and Astros played yesterday in Mexico City. Fans pelted the players with bottles, cups and seat cushions after the game was called. In further news, Jeffrey Loria thought the series was so successful that he wants to play regular-season games in […]

The Mets’ exciting young player, Jose Reyes, has pulled a hamstring again. No timetable yet on his return. This has got to be a real concern for Mets fans. It looks as though Reyes may have chronic leg and hamstring problems. Meanwhile, Mike Cameron has a bone spur in his foot and Kaz Matsui has […]

Here is Craig’s pitcher evaluation, too. There is a healthy debate going on at battersbox, regarding the usefulness of these stats. As Robert says, we don’t know much about the relationship of college performance to major league performance. Yet.

Our own Craig Burley does some terrific work here. I’m sure the cutting-edge teams have already done this in-house, but I don’t think the public has ever seen data like this. I await the rest of the series. I think the next big thing down this path will be college MLEs (or something similar). I […]