Strasburg Redux

Washington has many fine sportswriters. Atop the list are Tom Boswell, Tim Kurkjian, and until recently John Feinstein. Last season Feinstein was one of the louder voices calling for the Nationals to keep sending Strasburg out every five days in September. And now he is using the failure of the Nationals to make the playoffs […]

Are 1800s Innings Pitched Totals Valid?

Should the enormous innings pitched totals of hurlers in the nineteenth century be adjusted based on the distance thrown? In order to compare eras, let’s take a closer look at the progression of distances from the pitching “box” to home plate since 1876. 1876-1880: 45 feet 1881-1892: 50 feet 1893-2013: 60 feet 6 in In […]

Fair Trade?

March 17, 2013 something bizarre occurred in major league baseball.  Mike Cisco, the grand son of Galen Cisco, former MLB pitcher, and pitching coach , was traded to the Los Angeles Angels.  So, what was so unusual about that?  The Angels acquired the Philadelphia pitching prospect for nothing! Mike Cisco, a prospect, pitched at Reading […]

Boston Red Sox Pitching Prospect Matt Spalding is Looking to Make His Mark

The more advanced prospects of the Boston Red Sox have received a lot of attention this spring. While it is certainly an impressive group, the team also has a lot of valuable young players in the lower levels of their minor league system. One of those rising players is right-handed pitcher Matt Spalding, who just […]

Proficient Pitchers – Part Two

Hey baseball fans! Here’s part two of my blog of the Proficient Pitchers greatest nicknames ever: The Rocket - Roger Clemens Clemens is called “The Rocket” for a reason. His blazing fastballs were a big part of why he won seven career Cy Young Awards, far more than any other player. Clemens is the only pitcher to start […]

Early Thoughts on the 2012 AL Rookie of the Year Race

While still early, the 2012 major league baseball season is now more than a third over, and many rookies have made intentions about being up to stay clear through their play. It’s never too early to start speculating about the Rookie of the Year race, and the American League has a number of impressive candidates. […]

New Grip Helps Brock Peterson Slug Eight Homers in Nine Games And Climb to Top of Atlantic League Ladder

Brock Peterson remembers one time when he banged out something like 17 consecutive hits. But that was as an American Legion player, and he was using a metal bat. His latest streak was much more vital to his career because eight home runs in nine games in a 10-day period in the Atlantic League is […]

Build It and We Will Come

For years now the fans of D.C. have been whispering, “Build it and we will come,” in response to questions about attendance. In 2005, when the Nationals were the newest thing on the block, they drew 2.7 million. When Nationals Park opened in 2008 and there was another new toy, attendance went back up to 2.3 million […]

Another Kind of Parkway Series Imagined

Watching the Orioles-Nationals series play out over such a gorgeous weekend, with so much fine young talent on both sides of the diamond, it was hard not to project into it something more than just another interleague squabble. With Baltimore sitting comfortably atop the American League East and Washington still within hailing distance of the […]

A Tale of Two Teenagers

Another teenage phenomenon has made his way through Hagerstown, only this year he was wearing visiting gray and his stay lasted for only four games. Dylan Bundy, the Baltimore Orioles 2011 first-round draft pick who is rated by many scouts as the best high school pitching prospect in the last 25 years, threw five shutout […]

Josh Beckett Working Hard to Assume Role of Scapegoat

Even the most optimistic Boston Red Sox fans would be hard-pressed to classify the team’ last 60 or so games as a slump because a slump implies an anticipated return to an expected level. Since blowing a seemingly insurmountable lead for the wildcard in the final month of the 2011 season, the team has looked […]

Book Review: 60’6″

                    60’6″: Balls, Strikes, and Baseball Mortality, the debut novel from former college and semipro pitcher Mike Arsenault, is a portrait of a young man clinging to an impossible dream and wondering what lies beyond.  Arsenault uses baseball as his backdrop, but his story transcends the […]

A Flood of Riches

The rain is falling in Washington and it will mean that there is no chance to sweep the Marlins today. There is nothing cloudy or damp, however, about the superlatives being used to describe the Washington Nationals pitching staff. It is dedicated Nationals fans who are most aware of what it all means as they behold […]

It’s Always ‘Springtime’ in DC

The flowers remain in full bloom; the weather as gorgeous as a quad full of coeds; and the Nationals took three of four from a good Cincinnati team to move their record to 7-3. There was a billboard near the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta for many years that read, “It’s Always Springtime at Bulldog […]

An Interview with Texas Rangers’ Prospect Cody Buckel

Since Nolan Ryan became president of the Texas Rangers in 2009, they have become known as one of the tightest run organizations in baseball; combining savvy roster building with cultivating a deep farm system. Because of Ryan’s Hall of Fame pedigree as a pitcher, he has added pressure to develop a stable of dominant young […]

A Best Of Collection of Favorite Obscure Baseball Players

A year ago I started a project on my blog of asking people to name their favorite obscure baseball figure from the past: not exclusively players, but anyone employed by the game. The volume of responses (many came from the now-defunct Baseball-Reference blog) surprised me, and led me to start the project up again this […]

The Lighting of the Hot Stove

Perhaps the Hot Stove season does not commence until after the World Series. Or maybe it adds fuel to the fire. Either way there are instructive failures from last year to consider. There were Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth–just two of the biggest disappointments among the 2011 free agent class. Then at the summit is […]

24-Year-Old on Top of Indy Baseball World

It Is Another Busy Week in the Indy World With One 24-Year-Old Sitting on Top of It Every 24-year-old involved in Independent Baseball dreams of landing an honest-to-goodness major league opportunity. It has happened once more, although this time it was not a 95-mile per hour fastball or rare power that provided the launch. I […]

Brad Peacock, Selig Man with Upside Heart

Brad Peacock was taken in the 41st round of the 2006 draft as a “draft and follow” pick by the Washington Nationals. For Washington the 2006 draft was a disaster. Conducted when the team was still under management by Bud Selig and MLB, Inc., it might serve as a tutorial on all of the things […]

Let’s Play Two

The Sunday doubleheader was a staple of baseball in the Golden Era of the game, you know, when the World Series was played in the first half of October and kids listened to Don Larsen’s perfect game on the radio in Ms. Hill’s sixth grade class.  The Nationals and Brewers played a Sunday doubleheader today. […]

Clearing The Bases: Designated Hitters

Most players who are playing full-time at designated hitter this season we have discussed at other positions, so for this column, we will make it short and sweet, and only discuss the DHs that we haven’t gone over at any other point in this series of columns.  The problem with selecting someone who is a […]

Joba, I’m Going to Need You to Stay After Class

Professional athletes are like high school girls.  “I get older, they stay the same age.”

If Only All 48 Indy Players Could Catch This Break

    Robert Coello has only been pitching for four years after starting his professional career as a respected catching prospect, but the 6-foot-5, 250-pound right-hander no doubt is the envy of many of the other products of the Independent Baseball leagues who have their nameplates posted on a dressing cubicle in a major league clubhouse […]

Fantasy Baseball Outlook: Top Five (Starting) Pitching Prospects For 2011

Tampa Bay’s Jeremy Hellickson is targeted for stardom. By the end of 2012 he will slide into the #2 spot in the rotation to create a dynamic duo, along with David Price. In articles such as this, many websites give readers a list of the best overall prospects at a given position, but the intention […]

The Last Game in Town

Sept. 30, 1971. Seventy years and 10,851 games into the story of American League baseball in the nation’s capital, the Senators, 38 games out of first place on the last day of the season, faced the Yankees in the final game in franchise history. The teams had split the first two games of the series […]

They Are Two Stepping in Texas

There is dancing in Texas tonight.  The Texas Rangers played the best two teams in the American League and beat them both in convincing fashion to win the first American League Championship for the franchise after fifty years of frustration.  The anticipation of history in the making gave drama to a game that was decided […]

Fastball, Fastball, Fastball

On the web there are numerous video clips of Nolan Ryan throwing fastballs and they loop over and over, fastball after fastball ad infinitum, Ryan’s seemingly effortless delivery going on forever in some parallel universe where he will throw forever.  That was my mental picture of where Stephen Strasburg should be as he neared the […]

Stephen Strasburg: It Was Bound To Happen

Almost three months ago, Nationals Stadium was filled for the first time in it’s existence. Not because the Nationals were playing well, but because the most sought after prospect in baseball, Stephen Strasburg, was set to make his debut. The day was June 8, 2010. The opposing team was the Pittsburg Pirates. If the uniforms […]

The story of Joba Chamberlain: Frustration, frustration and more frustration

Believe it or not, Yankee fans can be frustrated too. Hard to believe considering they have won 27 championships and are in the playoff race year in and year out. But occasionally, Yankee fans find something to complain about, something to criticize. And once you get Yankee fans going, there is no stopping them. This […]

Surprising and Not-So-Surprising First Half

Now that we’re on the verge of the National League’s annual humiliation in the All-Star Game, it’s time to review the first half of the 2010 season. For some teams and players it has been business as usual, with baseball’s daily smorgasbord punctuated by a number of surprises, most recently the failure of the Evil […]

Chasing Down Dutch (Hub) Leonard

What do Ubaldo Jimenez and Dutch (Hub) Leonard have in common?  Nothing and everything. Jimenez is a big, strong, “black”, right-handed power pitcher who features a 95-97 MPH fastball that sometimes reaches triple digits and has sick movement, a slider, curveball, and change-up, the last of which tops out at 88, faster than some hurlers’ […]

Washington Is a Baseball Town (Again)

At the top of the seventh inning the crowd began the chant, “Let’s Go Stras-burg” to the same cadence that fans in DC have grown tired of listening to from Philly, Dodger, Red Sox and just about anywhere fans.  But this chant was all DC and it grew and built.  “Let’s Go Stras-burg” the entire […]

Adams Still Learning, But Impressing

It’s a tough transition for any player this late in the game to switch from being a position player to a pitcher full time, or vice versa. That player has spent years gaining experience and building credibility at a specific position, only to have to start from square one again and practically learn a new […]

The Sixth Tool: Measuring the Mind

Of all the prospects Pittsburgh received in its 2009 fire sale, possibly the most alluring was 25-year-old right-hander Charlie Morton.    Morton came armed with a knee-buckling curve, a swooping slider, and a darting fastball that blazed past hitters at 95 miles-per-hour.   He dominated Triple-A in 2008 and 2009.   Word was he was the ideal pitcher […]

Taking Stock of the First Month of Play

With the first month of the season in the books it’s almost time for teams and players to panic. Batters such as David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Pierzynski have to wonder how long it will take them to get over the Mendoza line, while teams such as the Orioles have to wonder where it […]

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