Clearing The Bases

Arizona Diamondbacks: Starting pitcher Randall Delgado, you know, one of the key pieces in the OF Justin Upton trade, is off to a rough at AAA and may not be the first call up once the Dbacks need help in the rotation, that may go to Tyler Skaggs. Good thing that Upton fellow isn’t off […]

Clearing The Bases

Arizona Diamondbacks: Pretty tough week for the DBacks as they lose 2B Aaron Hill until June with a broken hand. Hill suffered the injury when he was hit by an Edwin Jackson pitch. Tried to play with it over the weekend but just couldn’t do it. Outfielder Jason Kubel was also placed on the DL […]

Clearing The Bases

Well all of the fantasy rankings have been completed, it’s time to talk about real life baseball. There will be very little fantasy talk in this column as I will be making predictions on how the divisions will end. Predictions are never all that easy and in some cases completely useless once the season begins […]

What Sunk the Braves

Good teams don’t fold for no apparent reason. Though buried by the publicity piled onto the Boston Red Sox, who also slipped out of the playoff picture in September, the Atlanta Braves should have seen their slide coming. Plagued all season by an inability to score runs, the Braves plodded through the 2011 season by […]

Fearless forecast for 2011 flag chases

The first rule in making baseball predictions is to expect the unexpected. Don’t go with last year’s winners, popular favorites, or big-money ballclubs. Unless they deserve it, of course. Now that we’ve gotten past the obvious rules, there are the string of unknowns that can pop up anywhere during the course of a 162-game schedule, […]

2011 Pre-Season Preview: NL East – Atlanta Braves

Braves 3B Chipper Jones The Braves begin the new season without long-time manager, Bobby Cox, who stewarded the team to a succession of fourteen consecutive division titles (from 1991-2005, absent the strike-shortened 1994 season), five World Series appearances and a world championship in his 20+ years at the help. The 2011 season will usher in […]

Fantasy Baseball Outlook: Top Five 1B Prospects For 2011

    In articles like this, many websites provide readers with the best overall prospects at any given position, but the intention here is to focus on those prospects that are likely to provide the greatest fantasy impact in the 2011 season; thus, while Oakland 1B prospect Chris Carter may have some long-term potential, he […]

Buster Posey, Neftali Feliz Win Two-Man Races For Willie Mays Award

The battle for the Willie Mays Award, given by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to the top rookie in each division, turned out to be a two-man affair in both leagues, with Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz and San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey finishing solidly ahead of their closest competition, Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson […]

2010 midseason awards

MVP: Robinson Cano It’s hard to deny Cano’s talent the most valuable player award for the first half. Despite his numbers — his batting average is fifth in all of baseball — Cano has been the center piece of a Yankee team that holds the best record in baseball. With Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and […]

Jonrón de piernas (Inside the park home run)?

La mañana de este 10 de junio de 2010, escribía algo sobre el inminente Mundial de Fútbol, cuando mi compañera de trabajo, Meralys, me preguntó “¿Sabes qué es un jonrón de piernas? Venía escuchando las noticias y dijeron que un venezolano había bateado uno. Mientras le explicaba la diferencia entre un jonrón fuera del parque […]

NL East Preview

Who can beat the Phillies?  The Braves have some of the best young talent in the game, but no one will catch them.  The arrival in 2010 of young phenoms Stephen Strasburg and Jason Heyward will be highlights in the NL East.  The ultimate story will be Roy Halladay as he carries the Phillies back […]

Dan’s daring predictions for diamond action

Predicting the future — in any venue — is difficult even for Alison DuBois or others blessed with psychic powers. That is especially true when it comes to baseball, where teams play nearly 200 games and face each one without knowing who will get hot, who will get hurt, or who will perform above or […]

Fresh squeezes from the Grapefruit League

Making baseball predictions public is always a bad idea. Somebody always gets hot, or gets hurt, and players can stumble into hot streaks or slumps — some of them lasting a full season. Media types who predicted the Washington Nationals to revive in 2010 were greeted this spring with 11 consecutive exhibition game defeats. That’s […]

Musings from the Manager’s Office

Where to go on a rainy day in spring training? The manager of the Atlanta Braves, always a congenial host, held court with a half-dozen journalists before the rained-out exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at ESPN Wide World of Sports. Now that he’s a self-proclaimed lame duck, Bobby Cox has answered everything two, three, […]

News and Notes from the Grapefruit League

Like the Army, baseball is filled with Hurry Up & Wait situations. That’s especially true for writers, who arrive hours before gametime in an often-frustrating effort to pin down players or managers for interviews. There’s competition for each player, with the biggest stars commanding the most attention from media types, and a pecking order that […]